


some velvet morning, years too late

by tintedglasses



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Exes to Lovers, Getting Back Together, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mentions of attempted sexual assault (of a minor character), Minor Violence, Non-Famous Louis, Panic Attacks, Press and Tabloids, Secret Marriage, Secret Relationship, Secret Separation, Slow Burn, famous Nick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 18:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12588064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tintedglasses/pseuds/tintedglasses
Summary: A better adult probably would have changed their emergency contact information once they had convinced said contact that they wanted nothing to do with them, but Louis had never been very good at proper adult things. Besides, it’s not like he thought he’d ever need it.Or: Louis wakes up in the hospital with unfinished business at his bedside. Turns out Nick has some unfinished business, too.





	some velvet morning, years too late

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunsetmog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/gifts).



> [Sunsetmog](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog), you provided amazing prompts that were really hard to choose between, but I kept coming back to your secret marriage prompt over and over, even when I brainstormed (and wrote) for other prompts. Months ago, you encouraged me to join the exchange, so I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it :)
> 
> A huge thank you to my beta, [serenityandtea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenityandtea), who has fielded endless emails from me and who helped with the development and editing of not only this fic, but also countless plots and scrapped pieces before I finally figured out what I wanted to write. Your encouragement and comments helped me through my (fairly frequent) bouts of writing insecurity and for that I am very grateful. Also, to [Char](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/radiantbeams), thank you for your invaluable opinions and guidance, and for being a wonderful person to chat to and to [ kfo](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/kfo), thank you for helping out a lad last minute with your British expertise and kind comments. All remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone.
> 
> Finally, a big thank you to the mods for organizing this exchange.
> 
> Note: Please heed the warnings in the tags and contact me if you have any questions about them. Also, some of the medical information and music business details might be a bit hand-wavy at points, as I am not a doctor nor do I work in the music industry, but I did the best I could with google.
> 
> Title from "R U Mine?" by Arctic Monkeys.

When Louis wakes up, the first thing he notices is the pain; it's hard not to with the way it slams in from the periphery of his consciousness. For a moment, he can't pinpoint the nexus of it — just feels it ache all the way to the marrow.

As his body starts to grow impossibly used to it, he inventories his surroundings with eyes still closed. Buzzing overhead, steady beeps to the right, a tube running along the length of his forearm, scratchy sheets. Hospital.

Suddenly, fingers run through his hair and he flinches violently, his eyes slamming open only to squeeze shut again as the pain in his head flares.

He spits out a _fuck_ before catapulting towards the flashpoint of consciousness, pain radiating from the base of his skull down to his toes, nerves lighting up like neon lights saying _stop moving, stop moving, stop fucking moving_.

Everything is black for a single, blissful moment before he tilts back towards consciousness, the ache ebbing very slowly.

Once he's sure the flare has settled back into a constant drone of pain, he opens his eyes again, slowly this time.

The light hurts, but it's bearable.

He looks to his side and sees Nick sitting in a chair to his left. Must be a pain hallucination, although it's weird that this Nick has his hair in a quiff like Real-Nick when _his_ Nick always wore it down. Louis likes it better down. Real-Nick isn't his anymore, but Louis thinks he should get a say in how hallucination-Nick wears his hair. It's only fair since it's his pain doing this.

"I'm so sorry, Louis. I didn't mean to scare you," hallucination-Nick says, eyes wide like he's the one who got startled.

"Your hair is stupid," Louis says, groggily. It’s only fair that Nick knows that, even if he is just a hallucination; although, he probably shouldn't indulge his hallucinations by talking to them. Oh, well.

Hallucination-Nick chokes out a half-laugh, half-sob. "Even half-dead, you're still a twat. I can't say I'm not impressed."

Louis means to laugh, but a groan comes out instead.

Hallucination-Nick stands up, his hands fluttering over Louis, not sure where to touch. "Are you all right, love?"

Louis scoffs internally because he's obviously not all right or else he wouldn't be here. That takes too much effort to say, so instead he says, "Hurts."

"Shit. Of course it hurts," hallucination-Nick mutters. He grabs the call button from where it's laying by Louis's hand. "Here, let's call a nurse."

Louis should really hit the button for real so a nurse will actually come, because _motherfucker this hurts._

__

But instead, Louis takes a moment to take in his hallucination while it lasts. It looks startlingly like his Nick. He's got a few more lines than Nick did back then, and of course his hair’s in that stupid quiff, but other than that Louis's imagination did pretty good, the freckles and the eyelashes spot on.

A nurse bustles in, big, brown eyes and brown hair cropped short to his head, apparently having heard Louis’s silent plea for more pain meds. Thank god.

"Mr Tomlinson, nice to see you awake," the nurse says, a little too chirpy. He leans in, whispering loudly, faux-conspiratorially, "Your husband’s been waiting quite impatiently."

Louis's brow furrows, ignoring the small burst of pain in his temples at the movement. He whispers back to the nurse, "You see him, too?"

"What does he mean?" Nick says, a little frantically.

"Don't worry, Mr Grimshaw, patients often act a little strange when they’re on pain medication. We've brought down his dose though, so it should wear off soon,” the nurse says looking right at hallucination-Nick.

Or apparently not-hallucination-Nick. Real Nick.

Well, what the fuck is he doing here?

* * *

Louis waits until the nurse —Liam, as he was informed— leaves before confronting Real-Nick.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Well, he was going to go for a little more tact than that, but the pain makes him more blunt. Not that he had much tact to begin with, to be fair.

Nick —Real, Real-Nick— looks startled at the question, his cheeks pinking slightly. "What do you mean?"

"S’like 8 am," Louis had seen the clock on the other side of the room, "shouldn't you be on the radio?"

"How did you know I do radio?" Nick says, cheeks a full-on red now. "We haven't spoken since before I got Breakfast."

"Everyone knows you do the bloody Breakfast Show, knob," Louis says, wincing at the volume of his own voice. Liam said he had a concussion and his headache seems to confirm it.

"Oh," Nick says, face falling a little, like he had been hoping that Louis had been keeping tabs on him. Louis had, but Nick doesn't need to know that.

"But why are _you_ here?" 

Nick looks dumbfounded at that, like perhaps he forgot that in all reality, there are multiple reasons why he shouldn’t be here.

“Well, uh, I guess I’m still listed as your emergency contact?” Nick says, looking a bit confused by that. “I don’t know if you just didn’t change them or whatever after we— y’know. But, uh, I wasn’t sure if you had anyone else to come. Didn’t even know you were in London.”

A better adult probably would have changed their emergency contact information once they had convinced said contact that they wanted nothing to do with them, but Louis had never been very good at proper adult things. Besides, it’s not like he thought he’d ever need it.

“Didn’t mean for you to know I was in London,” Louis mutters, not thinking. 

“Well, soz to ruin the secret, then,” Nick snipes, obviously hurt. 

Louis grimaces at Nick’s tone. “No, Nick, I didn’t mean it like that. I just—”

“No, it’s fine. Honestly. I got no right to be mad over it, have I? S’not like we’re together,” Nick says, trying to brush it off. 

Louis lets him.

“So, uh,” Louis clears his throat. He stifles a groan when he shifts a little, pain in his ribs flaring. “You said the hospital called?”

"Yeah, I got the call ‘round six saying you were here. They wouldn't tell me if you were okay or not, or if anyone was here with you, so I came." Nick shrugs, trying to act like it's no big deal that he left the BBC a half-hour before his show just to come see Louis, but Louis knows that Nick almost never calls in.

"Didn't have to come," Louis says, feeling a bit sheepish for disrupting Nick's work like that. Trust Louis to keep fucking up Nick’s life even when he’s not really a part of it anymore. "S’no big deal really, just a concussion and some bruised ribs. Be right as rain tomorrow."

"Louis, you got—" Nick swallows hard, unable to say it.

"Attacked." That's what Liam had said.

Nick flinches slightly. "Yeah." He says quietly. "And I didn't know if you were okay. Of course I came."

Nick still looks every bit as sincere as Louis had remembered. It was the thing Louis loved most about him.

"Didn't ‘ave to." Louis can hear his voice starting to slur from exhaustion, but he wants to make sure Nick knows that. 

“‘Course I did. In sickness and in health, right?” Nick says wryly, a slight smirk on his lips.

Louis lets out a brief chuckle. He closes his eyes and mumbles, “Til death do us part.”

“Yeah, Lou,” Nick says softly, seemingly noticing the exhaustion kicking in, too. “Sleep, okay? We can recite our vows later, if you want.”

Louis means to laugh at that, but he doesn’t have the energy. Must be the meds. It’s okay, Nick’s got enough people to laugh at his jokes now anyways. He doesn’t need Louis.

* * *

“What are you still doing here?”

Louis had expected Nick to leave after seeing that Louis was fine. Well, he doesn’t feel _fine_ exactly, but he’ll live. He figured that’d be enough to free Nick from his obligation as an emergency contact.

“You know, I’m going to get a complex if you keep asking that.”

“But really though, aren’t you busy with like, celebrity stuff or summat?”

“Celebrity stuff,” Nick scoffs. “I’m hardly an A-lister, love. Besides, Liam says that none of your other contacts picked up, must’ve been busy.”

That makes sense, being that he only has one other emergency contact and he’s in Ireland right now on a no-cell-phones-allowed lad’s trip. Great timing, really.

Nick rambles on. “Don’t know what kind of friends you’ve been hanging around with, can’t even pick up a call from the hospital. And I would have called your mum, but I don’t have her number. Surprised she didn’t pick up, though, when they called. Or that her, like, mum-senses or whatever didn’t go off. Are mum senses a thing? My mum always knows when I’ve sprained a toe, so I fig—”

“Nick, stop,” Louis says, chest aching for a different reason.

“Shit, sorry— Do you still have a headache?” Nick says, in a much quieter voice. He rolls his eyes at himself. “Here I am, banging on, when you’ve got a literal brain bruise.” 

“Just a bit of a headache.” It’s not a lie, except for the fact that Louis’s head is throbbing.

Liam comes in just then. Perfect timing, that lad. 

“Hello, Mr Tom— Louis.” The Mr Tomlinson thing had gotten old real quick, which Louis did not fail to let Liam know. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like someone took an icepick to my skull. But other than that, fine.”

“Well, I reckon it’s going to feel like that for a few more days, unfortunately,” Liam says, pouting a little as if he’s the one with the concussion, before brightening again. “But, I have good news. You’re getting discharged today.”

Nick jumps in. “Already? Don’t you have to make sure he doesn’t die of a brain bleed or summat?”

Louis’s face pales. “I’ve got a brain bleed?”

“No, no, Louis, you’re fine. And Mr Grimshaw, I assure you the doctors wouldn’t discharge him if they were worried about him still. But we’ve done all the scans and it looks all clear. Nothing we can do for him now, except encourage rest at home.”

Liam turns back to Louis, flipping through his chart. “So, it looks like the doctor wants someone to watch over you tonight, just to make sure you’re healing all right.”

“I can do it,” Nick interjects.

“Of course, Mr—”

“You don’t have to—”

Liam looks at Louis, confused. Well, he had referred to Nick as Louis’s husband, so it makes sense that he must think they live together. He must not know Nick from the radio or the gossip rags. 

Louis ignores Liam for a moment, dropping his voice to talk to Nick in semi-privacy. “Nick, no, you don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine by myself, really.”

“Mr Tomlinson, you really should—”

“Louis, don’t be daft. It’s not big deal. I know we may not be… I know it’s been a while, but I’m not just going to leave you to die in your sleep.”

“There’s really minimal risk of—”

“Nick, I’m not going to fucking die in my sleep. I’ve been fine on my own so far and I’ll be fine now.”

“Again, we really would prefer—”

“You call this fine? You got beaten half to death in an alley. I’d say you’re doing a little less than fine.”

“What, like that’s my fault? I didn’t—”

“Sirs, please.”

“Of course, it’s not your fault. But you need—”

“I don’t need anything from you.”

“Hey! Stop it.”

Louis's and Nick’s mouths clamp shut, cheeks pinking up at the outburst. Louis’s head pounds a little.

Liam smooths over his scrubs, clearly a bit ruffled. “Now. Mr Tomlinson, I’m going to need you to sign that you have someone to watch over you tonight before we discharge you. Do you have anyone other than Mr Grimshaw who can do that for you?”

“No,” Louis mutters. 

“Okay,” Liam nods. “Well, I don’t know what exactly is going on here, and it’s none of my business, but it looks like you’re just going to have to tough it out for one night with Mr Grimshaw, okay?”

Louis nods, resigned.

“Do I need to like... wake him up every hour? They do that on the telly, right?” 

Louis blanches at that. He refuses to be that much of an inconvenience. 

“No, no. You don’t need to do that. As long as Mr Tomlinson’s pupils aren’t dilated and he isn’t vomiting, solid rest is the best thing for him. But we’ll give you a pamphlet of what to watch for before you leave.”

“Okay, good,” Nick sighs. He must be relieved that he doesn't have to deal with Louis every hour.

“The doctor will be back in soon and we can start the discharge process then, all right?”

Louis nods reluctantly. As much as he's looking forward to getting out of here, he's not sure how he's going to handle the night with Nick.

* * *

“Listen, I know you might not want to be around me, but I just want to make sure you're okay, all right?” Nick says, gripping the steering wheel.

It's the first thing either of them have said since they left the hospital ten minutes ago, delayed by an impromptu visit from the police, who insisted on taking Louis’s statement even though he told them he couldn’t remember any of it. The tension between them is stifling now that they're alone.

“Nick, it's not like that.” It's not that he doesn't want to be around Nick. He's just afraid to. “I just don't really think it's necessary. The doctors said—”

“The doctors said that you needed someone to keep an eye on you.”

Louis has the signed discharge papers in his hand that say exactly that, but, “They said that they don't think anything will go wrong. It's just a precaution.”

“Precaution or not, I'm not going to budge on this.” Nick's lips quirk a little, looking at Louis out of the corner of his eye. “What kind of husband would that make me? Can't have young Liam thinking I don't fulfil my vows.”

Louis’s heart twinges a little at the mention of their marriage. They may be joking about it now, but the reality is flickering in Louis’s peripheral, chasing him almost. The reality that Nick is fulfilling an obligation to Louis because he's hurt.

“Liam wouldn't even know,” Louis grumbles. 

“Still.” 

Louis sighs. He could keep trying to push Nick, but his head is really starting to hurt again and he's feeling a bit dizzy. It's probably a good idea to have someone to watch over him, and he can't imagine calling Niall or Lottie. Nick's already here. Louis might as well let him help.

It might be for the best anyways. Maybe now they can finally sort this whole marriage thing out and get some closure— figure out divorce papers or summat. After all, regardless of what they said in their vows, they aren’t going to be together forever. Might as well get it over with and get back to their lives. 

* * *

The car stops in front of a gated house before Louis realises that he hadn't even given Nick his address. He blames his forgetfulness on the concussion.

“Where are we?” 

“Oh, shit,” Nick says, sheepishly. “I meant to ask you before we left the hospital but then you went to the loo and I forgot.”

“Is this your house?” It's very nice. It's everything Louis always knew Nick would achieve.

“Yeah, just got it last year. Listen, we can go to yours if you'd rather. You probably want to be somewhere familiar. Fuck, I didn't think about that.” Nick's hands are getting a bit fluttery again, like he desperately wants to take care of Louis for some reason, but doesn't know how. “I'll just have to call someone about the dogs. Emily’s out of town but maybe Aimee—”

“Nick, stop,” Louis cuts off his nervous rambling. “It's fine, we can stay here.”

“You sure?” Nick looks hesitant. “We can stay at yours.”

Louis can't imagine Nick in his shithole of a flat. Louis doesn't ever want him to see it, especially not after seeing Nick's house now. 

“I'm sure.” He offers a small smile to Nick, trying to ease his nerves. “Besides, it's only one night, right? That's what you said.”

Nick chuckles at that. He takes a breath in. “All right, let's head in then. Let me come around and help you.”

“You don't—”

“Hush. Doctor’s orders.”

Louis wants to protest some more but he really is feeling dizzy. He knows his ribs will ache when he starts moving, too. He’ll take the support.

Nick comes around the side of the car to open Louis’s door. He doesn't balk at Louis’s dirty t-shirt, the same one he was wearing last night. Instead, he reaches to get his arm around Louis’s back and gently helps him step down from the car. 

“Sorry about my shirt,” Louis grunts, trying to distract himself from the pain as they slowly make their way to the door. 

“Don't apologise,” Nick says. “Not your fault.”

They stop at the gate to enter in a code. It unlocks with a loud click and they awkwardly shuffle forward, stopping to make sure it's closed firmly once they're on the other side. 

They make their way up to the door next and as Nick begins to unlock it, they can hear a smattering of nails across the floor and barks from the other side.

Nick grimaces. “Sorry, I forgot to cage them this morning. They might try to jump on you.”

“S’fine.”

True to Nick's words, the dogs do jump on Louis the second he's through the door. He recognises them from Nick’s Instagram, but can't remember their names at the moment.

Louis crouches down to pet them, gritting his teeth against the pain in his side. “Hi, there. Aren’t you friendly?”

“Louis, what are you— Pig, Stinky, go on! Get out!”

The dogs look up at Nick and huff, turning to trot off to another room.

“Louis, you're not supposed to be doing that. They could have knocked you over,” Nick says, sounding annoyed.

Louis muffles a groan as he stands back up. Fuck, his ribs hurt. “It's fine. Just some bruises.”

“You're as stubborn as ever, you know that? Do you want to get more hurt?” Nick waves his hands in exasperation.

“No,” Louis says petulantly. 

Nick blows out a breath. “Okay, just... don't let them climb all over you, okay? Here, let's get you settled on the sofa. You can put on the telly and I'll make some tea.”

Louis lets himself be led into the sitting room. He really does want to lie back down, somehow exhausted just from the trip to the hospital. 

The dogs are both there but they stay where they are after a stern word from Nick. 

Nick helps Louis lie down on the sofa, trying to minimise the movements of his ribs. He grabs a blanket for Louis and drapes it over him. 

“Thanks,” Louis murmurs, as Nick hands him the remote.

“No problem,” Nick waves him off. “I'm going to go make the tea now and get you some pain meds.”

Louis hates that he can't just get them himself, but he knows that Nick probably wouldn't let him. He's going to have to resign himself to letting Nick take care of him. Besides, he’ll be out of Nick's life again soon enough.

* * *

The pain meds make Louis sleepy, so he ends up dozing off in the middle of Loose Women. He doesn't even particularly like chat shows, but he figures that if he's going to take up space in Nick’s house, he should probably put something on that Nick likes.

He wakes up to something wet nudging at his face. Cracking open his eyes, he can see that it's a snout. Pig’s, he thinks, but he's not sure if he knows which is which.

“Hi there,” he says softly, rubbing at the dog’s wide head. He can feel the smaller one lying on top of his shins, head resting in between Louis’s ankles.

The telly’s been shut off and Louis can hear Nick bustling around in the other room.

He pets Pig’s head as he looks around the sitting room. It's very Nick, all eclectic art and analogies that Louis doesn't quite understand. Louis can't remember if Nick has always been into shitty art or if that just comes with being famous. Louis wouldn't quite know.

Just as he's trying to figure out what one of the graffiti signs above the sofa says, Nick comes in carrying a mug of tea and a plate.

“Oi, I told you lot not to bother him,” Nick scolds the dogs. He shoos Pig away with his foot and, after placing down the tea and the plate, moves to pick up the smaller dog before Louis calls him off.

“No, no! He can stay.” Louis doesn't have any pets at home, so he's content with having a dog all over him while it lasts.

“You sure? I can move him. He's not even supposed to be in here,” Nick says, arms still partially reached out towards the dog.

“I'm sure,” Louis assures him. “What's on the plate?”

“Oh, uh, I bought a curry. I hope that's okay. I didn't know what you wanted but I didn't want to wake you up, and I remembered we used to go to that curry shop right around the corner from our old flat so I just got what you used to get there,” Nick says, eyes not moving from where he's picking at one of his cuticles.

Louis looks at the plate and sure enough, Nick's got his old order exactly right. And Louis’s not getting sentimental about it. He's not—he blames the pricking in the back of his eyes on the headache that's starting to bloom right behind them.

“No, this, uh, great. I really appreciate it,” Louis stammers. “I'll pay you back for it.”

“You don't have to do that, Lou,” Nick says.

“No, I do. I mean, I know that this is a lot for you to do for me after I— after what happened. The least I can do is pay for my meal.”

“I'm just doing what any ex-husband would do,” Nick deflects.

They're not ex-husbands, but Louis doesn't point that out. “I don't think that's accurate. Don't most ex-husbands like, rebound with someone super young and like, buy a boat or something?” 

Nick grins a little. “Not me. No boats here. I am very dedicated to my vows,” Nick feigns crossing his heart. 

Louis mood dims a bit. “Really, though, Nick, I don't want you to feel obligated just because we were married once. If you don't want me to stay, I can definitely go. I'll be fine.”

Louis is surprised to find that he really doesn't want to leave. Sure it's a little awkward, but he's missed Nick.

“You think too well of me, Tomlinson. I am far too selfish to ever do something like this out of obligation. I know it's been a long time, but I just want to make sure you're okay.” He pauses, a wry grin twisting his mouth. “Besides, I'm far too young to be a widower.”

A chuckle bursts past Louis’s lips. God, has he missed Nick. “No, no. We wouldn't want that,” Louis affects a posh tone. “Although, might I say that you look absolutely ravishing in black, darling.”

Nick cackles. “You are absolutely right, good sir.”

They grin at each other for a moment, before Louis’s stomach grumbles audibly. He hasn't eaten since the hospital this morning and it's nearing 4 pm now.

“Eat your curry before it gets cold,” Nick orders. “And drink your tea. I'll be right back with my curry and then we can watch some Judge Judy.”

Louis watches Nick retreat to the kitchen, and for the first time in a while, he lets himself feel a pang of regret for what he did. Of course, he knows he did the right thing for Nick’s sake; he only needs look around this fancy house or scroll through Nick's Instagram to be reminded of that. 

But he selfishly wishes he had let himself have this life with Nick and takeaway curry and their own dogs and watching shit telly. He wishes that he could be there to take care of Nick when he's ill and that they could be partners again. Or even just friends.

Mostly, he just wishes he could keep this now, could fit in with Nick's life and just stay for once. 

But he knows deep down that he can't. 

* * *

They're just settling into an episode of Love Island when Louis’s phone rings.

Lottie.

It's not exactly unusual for Lottie to call him, but it is unusual for her to call at this time on a Thursday night. Louis is instantly alert, worried something's wrong with one of the twins.

“Hello?” he answers, slightly hesitant.

“Oh my god,” Lottie exhales, like she’d been holding her breath while waiting for him to pick up. “Lou, are you okay? What happened?”

Louis sits up quickly, his head pounding at the movement, ribs pricking with needle-sharp pain. “Lottie, what are you on about?”

“The video, Lou. I saw the video...and you...I—” she cuts herself off and Louis can hear her crying through the receiver.

“Lottie,” he tries to say calmly, but he has no idea what she's talking about. “Lottie, what video?”

“You!” she says loudly, making Louis’s head pulse. He ignores it. “You... and those guys were... they hurt you and they— they just left you there.”

Louis looks at Nick and finds him staring back, looking worried. He covers the receiver for a moment. “Nick, your computer? Can I, please?”

Nick startles into motion, jumping up to go get his laptop. Louis turns his attention back to the phone where Lottie’s still crying. “Where was the video, Lottie?”

“L-Lou, are you okay? I saw you and, and you were so limp,” she retches, “and oh god, you looked dead.”

“Listen to me, love. I'm fine, okay?” Louis tries to reassure her, willing Nick to hurry the fuck up. “Just a few bumps really.”

“Don't do that,” she says fiercely through her tears. “I'm not a child. What- how are you really? Is Niall there?”

“I know, I know. I'm sorry,” he apologises. It's not the first time they’ve had this conversation recently. “Listen— I've got a concussion and some bruised ribs, but really I'm fine. Niall’s in Ireland, but I've got a friend looking after me.”

“Is it Nick? You've never said anything about him and now they all say you're dating again?” Lottie questions, confusion seeping through the phone. “And who were— why did they do that to you?”

Nick comes in then, carrying his laptop and sets it on Louis’s lap gently. He stops in his tracks when Louis says sternly, “How did you know about Nick? Who says we’re dating?”

“The Sun and the Mail and all of them,” Lottie blows her nose, as Louis flips open the laptop and pulls up google. “There's pictures and... and why didn't you tell me?”

“It's a long story and I promise I'll tell you all about it okay?” Louis says distractedly, meanwhile searching Nick’s name to see what pops up. 

**Violent Attack on Grimmy’s New Boyfriend? [Exclusive Video]**

**Grimmy Skives off Work to Nurse Beaten Boyfriend [See Photos]**

**Grimmy’s Songwriter Boy-Toy Attacked Outside Bar in Whitechapel**

All three articles have been posted within the last hour or so, like leeches swarming in a pool of blood, multiplying.

Fuck. 

“Lottie, I'm going to have to call you back, okay?” he says into the phone, monotone, insides churning. Nick comes around to see what's on the screen and Louis can hear his gasp.

“Lou— what? No,” Lottie pleads.

“I'll call you back in ten minutes, okay?” he says and then hangs up. 

He can feel the panic swelling as he clicks on the first article, the one promising a video. It's the Sun.

He ignores the text and the pictures of him and Nick outside Nick’s house, not even beginning to unpack the anxiety that comes with seeing pictures of them together in public, scrolling until he finds the video and clicks play.

“Louis, I don't know if you should watch this,” Nick hedges. Louis ignores him. He has to see it.

It feels surreal watching himself step out of the side door of the bar. He's carrying a large bin bag towards the dumpsters, presumably closing up the bar. He doesn't remember.

He sees two guys emerge from around the corner, spotting him instantly, predators lying in wait for their unsuspecting prey.

Louis plays the part. It doesn't look like he even registers the sound of the lads coming up behind him until he turns away from chucking the bin bag, and by then it's already too late. One of them shoves Louis backwards full force. Louis watches himself trip, his skull ricocheting off the dumpster. His head pounds at the sight.

In the video, he crumples to the ground and the lads kick him repeatedly before one reaches out a hand to stop the other. He bends down and grabs Louis by his hair, and Louis’s head limply follows.

The man drops Louis’s head and backs away from Louis’s body, seemingly spooked by Louis’s lack of response. There's no blood visible, but it's obvious something is wrong. The men talk for a quick second, looking around frantically before they dart off towards the opening of the alley, leaving Louis’s body behind.

He watches himself lie there for another ten seconds or so before a hand reaches out to snap the computer shut. The whole video was probably only a minute but it feels like a lifetime.

For a moment, all Louis can hear is silence, a white noise ringing in his ears. He knows his head is in pain, but he feels separated from it.

Then he registers wet, gasping noises, and awareness slams back into him. It feels like he can't breathe, his throat closing up. He tries to claw at it, but hands reach up to stop him. He grips one of them hard, trying desperately to ground himself.

His ribs are caving in, his lungs heaving themselves into them. His head pounds and pounds and pounds until it feels like his brain is going to implode within his skull. 

He can hear Nick trying to calm him but he can't figure out what he's saying. All he can think about is how it felt when he turned around and saw those guys, when he realised that he was cornered in the alley with no one around. He didn't even scream, body just sheer panic.

He tries to focus on Nick rubbing circles on his back, the feeling of Nick's wide hand squeezed between both of Louis’s, but it isn't enough to override the pain, which is only making him more frantic.

He vomits on the carpet, choking a bit, but Nick doesn't budge. Just keeps rubbing circles into Louis’s back, whispering in his ear.

Louis breaths slow in very small increments at first, until it feels like something breaks free in his chest, letting him take his first big breath. He breathes in a little too much, pain in his side flaring, until he finds his rhythm.

The pain in his head subsides slowly, until Louis finds himself slumped into Nick’s side, unable to hold his head up.

His body feels sore from the hyperventilation, but his head and his ribs have returned somewhat to normal. Well, whatever normal can be considered after being attacked.

“There you go,” Nick murmurs quietly, moving his hand from Louis back to his bicep, rubbing up and down slowly. 

“I remember it, Nick. One second I was alone, and then they were just... there.” Louis can feel himself getting a little worked up again. 

“Shh, let's just take a minute to breathe, okay?” Nick says, still rubbing Louis’s arm. “Can I get you anything, love? Tea?”

Nick is remarkably calm, an almost absurd contrast to Louis’s frantic panic only minutes before. Louis is grateful for it.

“Sorry—” Louis clears his throat, which feels thick from the vom. “Sorry about the sick on the carpet,” he mutters.

“Don't apologise,” Nick says. “I'm a world-champion vom cleaner since I can't seem to stop Pig from eating people food.”

Louis lets out a weak chuckle, deciding not to argue it. He feels awful about ruining Nick’s carpet, but he'll have to tell him that another time.

“So, how ‘bout it? Cuppa? Always makes me feel better after a vom. How about some pain meds, too?”

Louis doesn't like the pain meds because they make him drowsy, but he nods anyways. 

Before Nick is able to get up, Louis’s phone beeps. He's got three missed calls from Lottie, and it's been about half an hour since he hung up. Fuck.

Just as he's trying to work up the energy to call her back, she calls him again. He can't help the sigh that leaves him. He's exhausted.

“Do you want me to get that?” Nick asks gently, eying the phone. “I can let her know what's going on and tell her you’ll call tomorrow.”

Normally, Louis wouldn't pass the call off like that, but he really is exhausted. “Okay.” 

“All right, love,” Nick pats Louis’s knee before heading towards the kitchen with Louis’s phone.

Louis thinks about trying to listen in, but he falls asleep before he can even attempt it.

* * *

Nick wakes him up a short time later with a gentle nudge to his shoulder—a sharp contrast to all the mornings that Louis’s alarm used to go off at 7:30 am for his class, back when Nick was still a late-night host at uni and would all but shove him out of the bed. Louis’s ribs are thankful for the change of pace.

The end credits to Love Island glow across the screen behind Nick's head, silhouetting Nick in the dim room. Louis must not have been out long then, if the show’s just ending.

He still feels a bit sleep-tinged, but he's on alert once he notices that Nick's eyes are rimmed with pink, cheeks a little blotchy.

Nick’s been crying.

“Hey there, sleepyhead. I didn’t want to wake you, but I figured you’d probably want your meds. I’ve got your phone, too.” 

“Thanks,” Louis murmurs, taking both from Nick’s outstretched hand. He washes the pills down with a swig of the tea Nick’s placed on the table, wincing as it burns all the way down his throat. He watches Nick as he bustles around the sitting room, stacking up the plates from their dinner, sniffling discreetly every so often.

Louis’s not sure why Nick’s been crying. He seemed fine when he left to go talk to Lottie earlier. “What's wrong?” Louis says, concerned, wondering if something had happened with Lottie.

“Nothing,” Nick says, a little too brightly, still not looking at Louis. “You, um, got a call from a ‘Niall’ while I was on the phone with Lottie.”

Damn, he forgot to text Niall not to worry about all the calls from the hospital. In his defence, Niall wasn't supposed to have access to his phone while he was out camping this week, so Louis didn't think he'd see it. He must be checking his phone at night.

“Oh, thanks,” Louis says. He should probably call Niall, but he can’t summon the energy at the moment. Instead, he just sends him a WhatsApp message, letting him know that they can FaceTime tomorrow. It won't satisfy Niall, but it'll have to be enough for now.

After he's sent the message, he looks up at Nick again, who has switched to moving around the objects on his coffee table for no particular reason.

“Nick, you're freaking me out a little,” Louis says. “Is it something with Lottie?”

Nick looks up abruptly at that. “No! No, Lottie’s fine. She just wanted to make sure you’re all right. I told her you’d call her tomorrow.”

“Why were you crying, then?” Louis asks, worried. Nick's not exactly known for being stoic, but he's not an easy crier either.

“I wasn’t—” Nick stops when Louis shoots him a disbelieving look. He inhales before coming over to the sofa. After hesitating for a moment, he sits down on the edge of the cushion, next to Louis’s hip. “I don’t know. Lottie was crying because she kept watching the video over and over, and she kept talking about it and I— I got a little upset, I guess.”

“But she’s okay, right?” Louis double-checks.

Nick nods, looking down at his tea.

“Nick... are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just— I don’t get why someone would do that to you,” Nick says. “Just to attack some random person in an alley. It’s messed up.”

Louis doesn’t really get that either. He knows that Ben had just come back in from having a quick fag right before Louis took out the rubbish. Why hadn’t they attacked him instead? He’s about the same size as Louis, so they definitely could have taken him. 

It’s like they were waiting specifically for him. He gets a flicker of a memory from the night before, the strobe lights sweeping across the dance floor, the feeling that something wasn’t right. “Nick,” he says. “Can you hand me your laptop.”

“Why?” Nick asks, looking bewildered at the sudden change of topic.

“I need to see something.”

When Nick hands him the laptop, he pulls up the Sun article again, clicking on the video— and there they are, the two men from the night before. They’re both relatively plain-looking, which is probably why Louis didn’t recognise them before through the grainy security footage, but it’s definitely them.

“Those bastards,” Louis mutters under his breath.

In the video, they start approaching Louis, but Nick’s hand darts out to pause the video before they touch him. “Can we not watch that again?” Nick says quietly.

Louis hadn't thought about what it was like for Nick to watch the video, too wrapped up in his own reactions. “Oh, shit. I'm sorry, Nick. I didn’t think—”

“No, it’s fine,” Nick cuts him off. He looks up at Louis, eyes redder than before. “I just don't like seeing you get hurt.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Louis says, a little awkwardly. “We don’t have to watch any more of it.”

Nick chuckles once, before a few tears slip down his cheeks, tipping over the razor-thin edge between laughing and crying. “I don’t even know why I’m like this,” Nick says, gesturing to his face haphazardly. “I’m not even the one who got hurt.”

Louis knows a lot about what it’s like to be on the other side of pain, having to watch someone suffer and knowing that there’s nothing you can do about it. He cried a lot during those last few hospital visits, when his mum could hardly grip his hand. 

Louis hesitantly reaches out to place his hand over Nick’s, unsure how to comfort him now. It’s not the same as it used to be, when Louis could just wrap him up for a cuddle. Now, they just sit in silence for a few moments, Louis awkwardly patting Nick’s hand a few times. He’s not sure it’s making Nick feel any better, but he doesn’t know what else to do.

Eventually, Nick clears his throat. “Why did you need to watch it again?”

“I wanted to double-check that I recognised them.”

Nick looks up at him. “What? Did you know them?”

Louis nods. “I think so, yeah.”

Nick looks stunned at that, like them knowing Louis was somehow worse than them attacking someone at random. “Who were they? And how could they... why would they do that?”

“I mean, I don’t know who they are exactly,” Louis clarifies. “I just remember them being in the bar that night.”

“Did you do something to them?” Nick asks.

Louis scoffs. “Just ruined their night, I reckon.”

“How did you do that?” Nick asks, confusion furrowing his brow. 

“I saw them out on the dance floor with some bird,” Louis recalls. The memory flickers to the beat of the lights. Their hands. Her head, limp in the crook of one of their necks. Them moving in one tangled mass towards the door. “They were trying to take her home, but she was bloody pissed. And I... I couldn’t let that happen.” 

“Lou...that’s a really important thing that you did,” Nick extols.

Louis feels shame inching into his periphery. He may have gotten her away from them, but he didn’t call the police or even tell the bouncer to keep them out next time. He didn’t tell anyone. Instead, he had helped her find her friends and then had gotten back behind the bar, ignoring the other bartender’s glare as he got started on the drink orders that had piled up in his absence.

Maybe he’s desensitised to it, the endless string of men that take advantage of women, and everyone’s apparent disinterest in the problem. Maybe he’s deluded himself into thinking that if he helps the women, he’s not part of the problem anymore. But he knows deep down that that’s not true.

“I should have told someone about them,” Louis says lowly. 

“Oh, Lou,” Nick says, reaching a hand out tentatively to rest on Louis’s shoulder. “Maybe they can figure out who they are from the tapes, though. Now that you know it’s them. You could call the police in the morning.”

Louis shrugs noncommittally. He’s not sure the tapes are clear enough to identify them. 

“I know you probably don’t want to hear this,” Nick begins hesitantly, “but I think what you did was terribly brave. And I know that you wish that you had done things differently…” Nick stops, searching for the words. “But I can’t help but think of how alone that woman must have felt and— and how glad I am that nothing happened to her.”

It’s selfish, but for a moment Louis wishes nothing had happened to him either, though he would never voice that out loud. Besides, knowing that this would be the outcome of helping that woman doesn’t change the fact that he would do it a thousand times over.

“No one deserves having that happen. Stepping in was the least I could do,” Louis says quietly, but fiercely. 

Nick pulls Louis into a hug at that, Louis’s ribs twinging a little at the sudden movement. Louis is initially startled, unsure how to react. He hasn’t hugged Nick in years. He keeps his arms at his sides, afraid that if he lets himself return the hug, he won’t ever want to let go.

Nick pulls back, staring at the floor. “Sorry— I just. You never... sometimes, I think that you never knew how wonderful you were. Or are, I mean.”

Louis doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s been trying to be better, to be someone worthy of admiration. To be able to feel proud of what he’s done. He’s getting there, he thinks. He’s been able to sell a few of his songs here and there, he checks in on his sisters and brother, he tries to be a good person. But, there’s always this nagging feeling that it’s not enough, a small shred of inadequacy lodged deep in his brain. 

He doesn’t know how to be better, the goal posts always moving when he reaches them, but he knows that he should be.

“Well,” Nick says, startling Louis out of his thoughts. “It’s getting pretty late and I feel like I’ve made things sufficiently awkward for the night.” He shuffles his way off the couch, wiping his eyes one last time. “I’m going to let the dogs out for a wee and then head to bed I think. Got the radio in the morning.”

“Nick,” Louis calls out before Nick has a chance to leave the sitting room, realising he hadn’t responded earlier. The dogs stop behind Nick, all three of them looking at Louis. Louis swallows. “Thank you, really, for everything today. You didn’t have to do any of this.”

“I know,” Nick says softly. “But you needed me. And I promised I’d always be there when you needed me. So, I’ll be here, until you don’t need me again.”

He doesn’t sound bitter, just... sad.

Louis wants to say that he’s always needed Nick, but that’s probably not true. He thought that he would always need his mum, but now that she’s gone, he’s not allowed to need her anymore. He’s learned a lot about what he needs and what he can survive without, no matter how difficult it is. 

But he knows he always wanted Nick. It’s the one thing that never wavered— not during the night they got married, not during that phone call that ended it, and not now.

Nick’s gone before he can even think about saying it.

* * *

Niall’s incoming FaceTime call wakes Louis up at quarter past noon, the ringer blaring incessantly from the coffee table. Louis fumbles for the phone, sliding the accept button so the noise stops.

Niall’s face jolts on screen at first, the connection glitching before the video smooths out. “Tommo, there you are,” Niall says brightly before his face settles into a worried frown. “Been trying to get ahold of ya, mate. Had me right worried.”

“Sorry,” Louis says, wincing a bit as he tries to settle into a comfortable position. “Was just exhausted last night.”

Niall clucks his tongue. “All right, mate? Laura sent me that video of it. Looked brutal.”

Fucking rags. “Got a concussion and some bruised ribs, but I’ll be ace in a bit.” The back of his head is still throbbing and his ribs ache, but he can’t deny that it’s nowhere near as bad as this time yesterday.

“Fuck, mate. That sounds awful. Did they catch the bastards who did it?” Niall presses his lips together.

“Nah, not yet,” Louis says. He’s not sure they will. “I would have called right after the hospital but I thought you weren’t supposed to have your phone.”

“We weren’t going to have our phones, but then Deo said we should check them at night, just in case of emergencies, you know. Wish I would’ve had mine sooner, though. Could have answered when the hospital rang,” Niall says, his face apologetic.

“It’s your holiday mate, don’t worry about it. Besides, they got ahold of someone else quick enough.”

“S’that Grimmy, then?” Niall raises his eyebrows. “Didn’t know you even knew him, but I saw the pictures in the Sun article Laura sent.”

“Yeah, he came and picked me up,” Louis says, hoping that Niall will leave it at that. 

He doesn’t. “What the story there, then?”

Louis goes for the simple version. “We used to date back in uni. He was still in my emergency contacts, I guess.”

Niall lets out a low whistle. “Damn, I didn’t know you were pulling celebs back in the day.”

“He wasn’t famous then,” Louis mutters.

“You never tell me about your secret lovers,” Niall pouts, already distracted from Louis’s injuries. “Had to find out from Brez that you shagged that bird who was hitting on you during our shift a month ago.”

Louis’s face heats up at that. “I didn’t know Brez knew about that.”

“Eh, he knows about everything.” He leans back from the screen, calling out, “Don’t ya, Big Head?”

Louis hears Brez call back in what sounds like the affirmative and pounces on his opportunity to change the subject. “How’s your trip going anyways?”

Sure enough, Niall’s face lights up as he launches into a story about how their tent almost blew off the cliff.

* * *

Nick gets home while Louis is still facetiming with Niall, a quick glance at the clock revealing that it’s just about one. It seems a bit early for Nick to be home already, but Louis did hear him leave the house while it was still dark out, so it’s quite possible he’s already put a full day in.

Louis can almost feel the frustration radiating off of Nick as he passes through the sitting room to make his way to the kitchen, hardly acknowledging Louis at all. It’s a stark contrast to last night when Nick had hugged him beneath the comfort of the dim light from the telly. 

Louis is startled back to attention by Niall’s tinny voice through the phone, asking Louis if he’s been listening to anything he’s said. He hasn’t, his attention span swallowed up by Nick’s arrival.

“Sorry, Niall,” he says sheepishly. Nick slams a cupboard in the next room. “I think I have to go now, actually.”

“Aw, going so soon?” Niall teases, an exaggerated pout on his lips. He can only hold the expression for a couple seconds before he laughs. “All right, then, lover boy. Go on. You’ll be at home when I get there Monday, right?”

“Yeah, ‘course. Can’t go another day without seeing you can I, lad?” Louis chuckles. 

Niall laughs brightly, his face lighting up as always, even at the slightest of jokes. “Damn straight. Okay, I’ll see you then. Love ya, Tommo.”

“Love you, too, Nialler,” Louis replies, giving one last grin before hitting the red end button on the screen. 

He can still hear Nick banging around in the kitchen and sighs. Nick wants someone to talk to, then. It’s always been like this, Nick being too stubborn to just talk about what’s wrong, needing someone to push him into it instead. Making a lot of noise and being a nuisance is how he drops hints.

Louis sighs again, moving to push himself off the couch. His ribs ache a little at the motion, but not quite as much as yesterday. All the noise from the kitchen isn’t doing great things for Louis’s head, though. 

It only gets louder as he heads into the kitchen, where Nick seems to be aggressively rearranging his shelf of mugs. 

“What’s going on?” Louis asks, tucking himself against the counter, out of the way. 

“Nothing,” Nick says, his bright smile looking ragged at the edges before he turns back to the cupboard. “Just decided that I don’t like the way these are arranged. Don’t like the whole aesthetic of it. Awful really.”

Nick’s cheery demeanor is belied by the way he almost chips one of the mugs, shoving it forcefully into the back corner of the cupboard. 

His head’s still half inside the cupboard when he says, “We had a great show today. Great show.”

It clearly wasn’t. “Did you?” Louis asks anyways.

“What, you didn’t listen?” Nick says, turning to face Louis. Louis shakes his head slowly. “Oh, don’t tell me that! You’ll break my heart. Can’t have the world knowing that Nick Grimshaw’s own boyfriend doesn’t listen to his show,” Nick spits. “Bad enough that most of England doesn’t.”

Louis is speechless at Nick’s reference to Louis as his boyfriend. It feels nothing like the joking about their marriage from yesterday.

Nick turns around again, putting the mugs back even more forcefully than before. Louis can see Nick’s hands shaking now, and he takes a hesitant step towards Nick as Nick starts speaking again. 

“But darling, really, you missed quite the show.” Nick’s voice is sharp, cutting. “You and I were all over the ent news and we even played a little game of ‘Who is Grimmy’s Boyfriend?’ and none of them guessed anything right about you. I mean, how could they, when the question itself is wrong? Should be ‘Who is Grimmy’s Husband?’. Or better yet ‘Who was Grimmy’s Husband?’” Nick pauses before shaking his head and adding, “God, the tabs would have a bloody field day if they found out you left me, wouldn’t they?”

Louis’s breath catches in his throat at that, at Nick’s unconcealable aggravation. He and Nick had argued before, but it had never been like this.

“Did you tell them?” Louis asks, anxiety spiking at the thought of everyone knowing about their past. 

“No, of course not. Could you imagine the fucking headlines?” Nick scoffs, his motions getting more frantic. “‘Failing DJ’s Failed Marriage’? God, they would fucking— Shit!” 

Louis watches as one of the mugs tumbles out of Nick’s hands, crashing to the floor. He jumps back at the impact, a few shards hitting the tops of his bare feet, mercifully avoiding getting cut. 

Nick covers his face with his hands, breathing harshly. The dogs come sliding into the kitchen at the commotion, breaking Louis out of his stupor as he moves to let them out into the garden before they get into the ceramic mess on the floor. 

When he comes back into the kitchen, Nick is sitting on the floor with his head tucked between his knees, the mess spread around him in a half-halo of debris. Louis crouches down and starts picking up the large pieces with careful fingers before dumping them in the dustbin, his mother’s voice faintly scolding him for not using gloves playing in the back of his mind. 

Once all the bigger pieces have been picked up, Louis looks around the kitchen in search of a broom and dustpan. 

Louis turns to Nick, who’s still in the same position, to ask him where they are.

“Nick—” 

“Please, don’t— give me a second, please?” Nick pleads, lifting his head but still not making eye contact with Louis. “Just, go to the sitting room and I’ll clean this up. Fuck, you should be resting, not picking up my mess.”

“Nick, it’s fine,” Louis says quietly.

“Just. Please go. Just for a minute,” Nick says.

Louis nods after a moment. He can give Nick some space if he needs it. Louis could use a minute, too.

He goes back to the sitting room and slumps down on the sofa, making a mental note to take a pain pill once he has the energy to dig the bottle out from wherever it’s been buried between the sofa cushions.

Nick comes into the sitting room a few minutes later, two steaming mugs of tea in hand, his cheeks tinged pink. His demeanor has done a complete 180, all of the fight drained from him.

“Here,” he says, setting down a mug in front of Louis. “A thank you for cleaning up my mess.”

“I’m a world-champion mess cleaner,” Louis replies. 

Louis’s glad to see Nick chuckle a little, his foul mood from earlier less apparent. “I seem to remember differently, Tomlinson.”

“Don’t get clever,” Louis retorts. 

Nick smiles a little, looking down at his tea. The smile dims as he swirls the mug. “So, uh, I heard you talking to Niall when I came in.”

Louis reflexively smiles at the mention of Niall, “Yeah, he was just checking in. He’s lovely, but really quite the worrier.”

“It’s nice to have someone to worry about you,” Nick says. “Especially in London. Can get a bit lonely.”

Louis can’t imagine Nick every being lonely, not from the countless stories he tells on the radio about his five million friends. He deflects, “S’that why you bought the dogs, then?”

Nick’s lips quirk up sardonically. “Something like that.”

They sit in silence for a moment sipping their teas, Nick steadily chewing a dent in the corner of his mouth. 

“When is he coming back from Ireland?” Nick asks.

“He’s getting back Monday. Good thing, too. Our flat is a tip without him there to clean it,” Louis laughs. 

“Ah, so not a world-champion mess cleaner,” Nick says. 

Louis rolls his eyes. “Obviously not.”

Nick smiles at that, looking down at his tea again. He opens his mouth to say something, but hesitates.

“What?” Louis asks.

Nick sighs, before saying, “I didn't know you were living with someone.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, confused as to why Nick was so hesitant to say it. “For about six months now. Match made in heaven, really.”

Nick frowns at that, disappointment colouring his features. “So... things are pretty serious, then?”

Louis’s brow furrows, a little slow on the uptake. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you two have moved in together and he's your emergency contact, so you must— you must really love him.” 

Louis’s eyes bulge a little at that. “What? No! He’s my roommate and we work together, that's why he's my— We’re not bloody in love with each other,” Louis splutters.

“Oh!” Nick says, a flush blooming high on his cheeks. “I just though because he called you ‘lover boy’—”

“Nicholas, were you eavesdropping on me?” Louis asks, putting his hand to his chest dramatically. Nick's face flares red, while Louis tries to hide his own blush, thinking about what Nick would have heard if he came in earlier.

“Well, you were on speaker and I... I have ears, you know!” Nick says indignantly. 

“Oh my god, wait until I tell Niall that you thought we were lovers,” Louis refocuses. He murmurs to himself, “Bloody in love with Niall, I think not.”

“Well, I didn't know!” Nick says defensively. “What was I supposed to think?”

“I don't know!” Louis laughs. “That I wouldn't betray our vows like that?” 

The joke falls flat, Nick’s face dimming again.

“Not that, like, you couldn’t date,” Louis back-pedals. “It would be stupid to expect either of us not to date. I know that, of course.”

“Yeah,” Nick says slowly. “I mean, I haven't— haven't really dated in a while. But, yeah, it'd be dumb to think that we won't like… find someone else.”

Louis’s heart clenches a bit at the admission that Nick has dated other people, no matter how hypocritical it is of him. Besides, he knows Nick has. Has seen it all over the tabs. Hell, he's heard it right out of Nick's mouth on the radio.

Louis’s dated other people, too, but they just never seemed to work out. They never quite measured up.

“I'm not dating Niall, though. Or anyone, for that matter.”

“Oh. That's, uh, good, I guess,” Nick says, before his cheeks get even redder. “Or, well, not good for you. Maybe. I don’t know.” 

Louis saves Nick from his rambling. “It's not bad. I mean, I've already got a husband. Greedy to ask for a boyfriend or girlfriend, too, innit?” 

Nick laughs at that, but the laughter doesn't really reach his eyes. “Suppose so.”

An awkward silence settles around them as they sip their tea. Louis wonders what Nick is thinking about. He'd seemed relieved when Louis had said that he wasn't dating Niall, which was surprising to Louis. He hadn't thought Nick particularly cared if he was dating someone or not.

“Lou,” Nick says, breaking Louis out of his thoughts, “I want to apologise.”

Louis turns to look at Nick, “What?”

“I want to say sorry,” Nick says, looking down at his tea. “It's been a hard adjustment, I think. You being here, again.” 

Louis’s heart drops at that. “I’m sorry for making it difficult for you.” 

“No, that’s not what I meant. I just meant to say that I'm sorry for earlier in the kitchen. I didn't mean to freak out like that.”

“It's all right, Nick. It's no big deal. Hardly even a strop really,” Louis tries to reassure him. 

“Still.” Nick sets his tea down on the coffee table, resting his elbows on his knees and staring down at the floor. “When I— when I got that phone call yesterday morning, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to let the past get in the way. I was just going to help you until you felt better and then I was going to get back to getting over you, like I’ve been doing all of these years. I didn’t— I wasn’t going to be bitter towards you or, like, blame you for not wanting to be with me.”

Louis’s heart breaks all over again, a seed of guilt blooming in his chest. He wouldn’t have come here if he had known that he was going to hurt Nick. He doesn’t know if it’s stupid to have thought that interjecting himself back in Nick’s life _wouldn’t_ hurt him.

It’s just that in all of the times that Louis has allowed himself to imagine what Nick’s life might be like now, he never once imagined that Nick wouldn’t be over him. It doesn’t make any sense, objectively speaking. Nick’s got all of his posh friends and his celebrity job and a fucking house and Louis’s just this dumb kid that never did anything but hold Nick back from that. He thought that Nick would realise that and he wouldn’t care anymore whether Louis wanted him or not. Why should he?

Nick continues on, as if he hasn't caused Louis’s world to tip slightly on its axis. “It's just been easier, I think, when nobody else knew about it. The public, I mean. But now it's out there for everyone to poke at or have opinions about it. And it's like they think they know something about me when they don't.”

“I'm sorry they're doing that,” Louis says, not sure what else to say. 

“I mean, I knew they would, but like, it's such an invasion of privacy, you know?” Nick looks up at Louis finally. “You didn't ask for anyone to release that video and they did. And yet, everyone's glossing over that like you didn't get hospitalised because they want to know about who I'm shagging. It's not fair.”

"It's not," Louis agrees.

They sit in silence for a few moments again and it's less awkward this time, but Louis feels the need to break it anyways. Trying to lighten the mood, he says, “Did they think I was fit?”

Nick barks out a laugh at that, a real grin splitting his face. “You would ask that.”

“And?” Louis prods.

“They thought you were well fit, of course. Proper swooning, I tell you.” Nick rolls his eyes.

“Good,” Louis nods, making Nick laugh again. He likes making Nick laugh. 

He reckons he's missed it.

* * *

They end up watching Nick’s old Simpson’s DVDs, neither one of them bringing up that fact that Louis doesn't technically need to be here anymore since Nick's fulfilled his duty of watching him for the night.

Yesterday, Louis had been so sure that he was going to make their time together as short as possible, but at the moment, he doesn’t feel the same urgency.

They make it through four episodes before Louis’s stomach starts growling.

“I should probably get going,” Louis says reluctantly, finding that he really doesn't want to leave.

“Yeah, maybe should,” Nick says. Louis starts to push himself up off the couch before Nick's voice stops him. “Unless…”

“Unless?” Louis says in what he can tell is an embarrassingly hopeful tone. He hopes Nick doesn’t notice.

“Unless you wanted to stay. I know the couch isn't the most comfortable, but you did throw up yesterday and Liam said I should call if you did, but I forgot. So maybe you should stay an extra night just to make sure you’re all right.” Nick says, his cheeks bright red.

“Nick, you don't have to do that,” Louis says. As much as he thinks he would like to stay, it's a Friday evening— surely Nick has better things to do than sit around and nurse Louis.

“You don't have to, of course. I just thought it might be a good idea since no one will be at your flat. No one to protect you from brain bleeds or nosy dogs,” Nick says.

“Well, I don't have a dog, so I don't think that will be a problem,” Louis points out.

“Brain bleeds, though.”

Again, Louis doesn't quite know what to think. He's thought Nick would be glad to have Louis go and to have his house back. But… it seems like he wants Louis to stay. 

“Don’t you have plans though? It’s a Friday night. Shouldn’t you be out with your mates, dj’ing or drinking or summat?”

“I don’t just go out and booze all the time, you know. I’m perfectly capable of a night in. Whether you stay or not, I’m not moving from in front of this telly.”

Nick seems sincere, like he really has no other plans. Nothing to interrupt.

“How will you get food?” Louis asks.

“Well, I’ll get up for that I suppose. Could go for delivery, though. Minimise the movements.”

If Louis's being honest, he wants to stay. After a moment of thinking, he decides that for just this once, maybe, he's going to let himself indulge in the moment. He can go back to being alone tomorrow.

“Well,” Louis says slowly, “I suppose we did break Liam’s rules, so perhaps we should try to be extra careful to make up for it.”

Nick hums in the affirmative. “We signed a paper and everything.”

“Well, then. I guess we have no choice,” Louis says, settling back against the sofa.

He almost misses the grin on Nick’s face but catches it just in time. 

* * *

They order delivery from a Chinese place Nick swears is the best in East London and eat in front of the telly again.

It reminds Louis of all the nights they've spent just like this. Usually, remembering how much time they spent holed up in their flat makes Louis feel guilty, especially when he thinks of how much Nick seems to love a night out. However, with Nick here next to him, it's easier to remember why they enjoyed it.

It’s like he’d forgotten Nick's quirks, all the little quips he makes when they switch to old Bake Off DVDs, and his almost disturbing obsession with Paul Hollywood’s eyes. _Do you think he wears contacts? There’s no way someone’s eyes can be that blue. You think Mary Berry ever gets lost in them?_

It’s hard to remember that this is temporary when Nick is here making him feel just like he did when they first met, back when Louis thought that maybe it could be forever.

By the time they get to the second episode, Louis is only half paying attention, having to shift every few minutes due to the ache in his ribs. Who would have known sitting upright could be this uncomfortable?

He's trying to be discreet about it, but he's failing miserably.

Sure enough, Nick asks half-way through the episode, “You all right?”

“Yeah, just my ribs,” Louis says. “Hurt a bit.”

“You could lie down,” Nick says scooting towards his armrest to leave the rest of the sofa open. 

“Thanks,” Louis says, lying down with his head on the armrest closest to him. 

Despite what Nick said earlier, his sofa is very comfy, which Louis blames for the fact that he falls asleep in the middle of a show yet again. He’s usually a bit of a night owl, but he supposes the pain meds are playing a part in it, too.

As he wakes up, he stretches his legs out but his feet bump against the armrest. Something warm slides from his ankle up to his calf.

Cracking an eye open, he sees that Nick's also asleep, head propped up on his hand, elbow propped up on the armrest. His other hand is on Louis’s calf.

Louis stays very still, taking in Nick in the low light of the screen flashing blue across his features. He can just make out the shadow of Nick's eyelashes and the way his lips are slightly parted. His hair lays flat, curling a bit at the ends. 

He's every bit as beautiful as Louis remembers.

Louis remembers countless nights when he couldn't sleep and he’d watch Nick's lashes flutter in his sleep, stealing the softest of kisses. Nick always teased him for being a sap, but Louis couldn't help it. There was nothing more captivating.

He lets himself look for a while longer, not sure when the next time he’ll get to see Nick like this is. If there even is a next time.

Then, he closes his eyes and drifts back to sleep. 

* * *

When he wakes up the next morning, Nick is nowhere to be found. 

Louis fishes his phone out of his pocket to see that it’s half-noon. Damn. He had been planning on getting out of Nick’s hair earlier than that. 

He searches around for his pain pills, intending to stave off the headache he can feel coming. The pain in his body has lessened to a dull throb, so he only takes half a dose, like Liam had recommended. 

Once he’s swallowed the pills and gone to the loo, he starts gathering up the few things he brought with him and folds the blanket on the couch. 

Jacket in hand, he heads to the kitchen, figuring that Nick must be in there. 

Sure enough, Nick is sitting at the table, messing about on his laptop. There’s faint music coming from the speakers that sounds familiar, but Louis can’t quite make out what it is. He stands awkwardly in the doorway, not wanting to disturb Nick if it’s something important, which based on the furrow of Nick’s brow, it very well could be.

After a few moments, though, Louis clears his throat to alert Nick to his presence.

Nick’s head snaps up as he slams the laptop lid down, a blush creeping up his face. “Hey,” he says loudly. “I didn’t see you there.”

Louis’s eyes narrow at his odd behavior, but he has no business prying. “Yeah, I was just, uh, gonna head out I guess,” he says.

“Oh,” Nick says, surprised, before he frowns slightly. “Yeah, I’m— I’m sure you probably want to get home.”

Louis clears his throat again. “I just wanted to say thank you for, you know, coming to the hospital and all. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Sickness and health, right?” Nick says, shrugging a little.

“Til death,” Louis agrees dully, the joke losing a bit of its humour at the stark reminder that that’s not what this is. These two days were nice, injuries aside, but they didn’t fix anything. Nick and Louis _aren’t_ going to be together forever. 

Nick pushes his chair away from the table, running a hand through his hair as he stands up. It’s not in his normal quiff; instead, it frames his face with curls, just the way Louis had always liked it best. It makes it impossibly harder to leave.

But then Nick is leading Louis towards the front door and Louis knows this is it. It’s back to writing and working, and trying to find some kind of fulfilment. It’s not Nick’s job to provide that for him.

He’s almost out the door when Nick stops him with a hand to the arm, withdrawing it as soon as Louis turns around. “Yeah?”

“I know that no one’s going to be at your flat tonight and I—” Nick swallows hard. “I wanted to let you know that you can call me if you need anything, okay?”

Louis nods slowly, already knowing that he won’t. “All right,” he says anyways. “And thank you again really.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nick says dismissively. “Are you sure you’re all right getting home?”

“Yeah, I’ll just take the tube,” Louis says, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder with his thumb. “I’m not too far from here.”

“All right, Lou. I’ll, uh, see you around, then, I guess,” Nick says.

Louis nods, giving Nick a final wave, before trudging down the front steps to the tube station, already relegating the past few days to his memory.

* * *

> They had met —after weeks of passing each other by in the overlapping English and Communication and Media building at Liverpool countless times— at a party in some poncy flat. Louis doesn't remember how he ended up there, just that Zayn knew somebody who knew somebody who had free booze.
> 
> Louis wasn't new to drinking, had been drinking since he was 14 probably, skiving off to sneak bottles of Stella off behind the school. But during his first year at Liverpool, he’d been off-kilter, trying to fit in with all of the posh kids who didn't like his trackies or the way he talked. They probably thought he was more Liverpool Hope than University of Liverpool, but he had his acceptance letter in hand.
> 
> Acceptance letter and drinking experience or not, he often found himself in a similar situation, at a stranger’s flat with the room spinning, trying to figure out where he was or where he should be or if there was more alcohol. How much more alcohol he needed before he could stop being self-conscious.
> 
> Nick found him like that, in the kitchen fumbling to get the cap off of a bottle of vodka, intent on doing yet another shot. He didn't know where Zayn was, probably off with that bird from his music modules he was always meeting up with in the practice rooms.
> 
> "Hey, don't I know you?" Nick said sidling up to Louis.
> 
> They didn't know each other, technically, but Louis recognised him. Louis was still navigating what it meant to be bisexual and out, but he knew what he liked and Nick fit the bill. Louis had watched him walking through the corridors, always with at least one other person, face open and expansive. He had a nice face, Louis had thought. Nice face with nice hair and nice hands and nice clothes. Nothing like Louis.
> 
> But at that moment, Louis was drunk and false-brave. 
> 
> "Is that supposed to be a chat-up line?" he asked, looking up at Nick from under his lashes. He hadn’t been sure if he got the look right, a little too pissed to feel exactly what his mouth was doing, but the grin on Nick's face said that it had its intended effect.
> 
> "For a pretty boy like you? I think I could come up with something better."
> 
> "Well get on with it then, I've got places to be." Louis remembered the way his heart rabbited in his chest, carefully trying to toe the line between flirty and rude. It had been easier with birds, more practiced.  
>    
>  But Nick's grin only got wider. He tapped his chin, thinking for a moment, before his eyes lit up. "Are those space trousers? Because your arse is out of this world," he said, looking so well chuffed that Louis couldn't help but laugh.
> 
> Well, giggle more like, the alcohol having taken over a bit.
> 
> "That was awful, mate."
> 
> Nick kept grinning, slowly backing towards the door. "Shall I just go then? Leave you to your vodka struggles?"
> 
> Louis blushed, not knowing that Nick had seen him struggling to get the cap off. "After such a horrible chat up, I think the least you could do is open this." Louis brandished the bottle toward him.
> 
> Nick had grabbed the bottle and set it on the counter before he turned back to Louis. Louis remembers distinctly that Nick was so close that Louis could see the light smattering of freckles on Nick's nose, even though any remnants of summer were long gone. "How about we get out of here instead?"
> 
> Louis didn't speak for a few moments, still processing in his brain how this was happening. As Nick's face began to dim a little, he luckily got his footing back. "Now that is an adequate chat up."
> 
> "Yeah? You think?" Nick laughed.
> 
> "Yes.” Louis nodded a bit jerkily, feeling a bit dizzy from his earlier shots. “Let us go at once, Sir...."
> 
> "Nick," he laughed again. Louis liked his laugh.
> 
> "Sir Nicholas,” Louis said solemnly. “Lead the way.”
> 
> * * *
> 
> Getting out of here had apparently been code for a 24-hour cafe. Louis was thankful for the change of pace, kind of afraid he would vom if they went back to Nick's straightaway, a mixture of the alcohol and the nerves and the fact that his gag reflex wasn't that practiced yet. Not that they would get that far necessarily. But they could.
> 
> After all, Nick was a third year and Louis was sure he's had many nights like this, one-night stands after shitty parties. Surely, he would be expecting something from Louis.
> 
> They sobered up a bit at the cafe, talking and laughing a bit too loud, before Nick asked if Louis wanted to go back to his.
> 
> It was a nice flat, not quite as posh as the one with the party, but nowhere near as small as Louis's. 
> 
> Louis was a bundle of nerves the whole way there, not sure how it was supposed to go. He'd hooked up with a few guys at parties or in the bathrooms of clubs, but he'd never been taken home before.
> 
> It reminded him of the first time with Hannah, when her parents had been away for the weekend, the impending pressure of what being alone had meant for two seventeen-year-olds who had been dating for a few months.
> 
> His nerves got so bad that he nearly dropped the cuppa Nick made him, before setting it down. Nick said something, but it didn’t cut through the haze of Louis's sudden anxiety, only one thing on his mind.
> 
> "So, how are we going to do this?"
> 
> Nick stopped and stared for a moment, unexpectedly cut off. Louis squirmed. "Do what, darling?"
> 
> Nick had been dropping pet names all night, but Louis's stomach still fluttered at the sound of it. 
> 
> "This," Louis motioned between them. "Do you want like a blowie on the couch?"
> 
> Nick's eyes widened a bit. "Louis, I think we're a bit too pissed for any of that, love. How bout we finish this cuppa and then tuck in?"
> 
> "Oh, right. Of course." Louis was embarrassed at having been so blunt, only to be shut down.
> 
> Nick put his hand on Louis's arm comfortingly. "Hey, right now, I just want to get a fit lad in my bed and cuddle. There's plenty of time for the rest."
> 
> Louis was flooded with relief at the intimation that this might not be just a one-time thing. That maybe Nick, above all odds, wanted to see him again.
> 
> "Okay. I'm sleeping in my pants though. I bloody hate these skinny jeans."
> 
> Nick had laughed, breaking the tension, before they slipped back into their conversation until they were sipping the last dregs of their tea.
> 
> True to Nick's word, they just slept, Louis feeling warm from a combination of Nick's body heat and a furnace that ran on a thermostat rather than a timer. Louis usually had to wait til the morning for some heat in his flat.
> 
> When they moved into their own flat a year later, heating had been the one amenity Louis let Nick splurge his money on without feeling too guilty about it.

  
* * *  


Louis’s been dodging calls from the paps all week, the voicemails piling up on his phone. Every time they call, he goes a bit shaky with anxiety, worried that surely they must have found something out about him and Nick. He doesn’t know what to do to stop them from digging around in their lives, but luckily, they haven’t seemed to find anything yet. He just wishes he had asked Nick what to do about them when he had the chance.

It’s ringing again that Friday afternoon, as Louis is getting ready for his first shift back at the bar after getting a week off from his boss. He’s kind of nervous about going back, which is probably dumb because it’s not very likely those guys are going to come back to hurt him again. They’re still out there somewhere though, so Louis can’t shake the nerves fully.

“Louis, can you answer the damn phone and just tell ‘em to fuck off?” Niall calls from the living room. 

Niall has a point. Louis thought that maybe if he just ignored the reporters they’d go away, but it’s obvious that’s not happening. He’s sure as hell not going to give them anything to go off of and they should probably know that so they can stop wasting their time.

He grabs his phone off the bedside table, tugging his shirt down so it’s on all the way. He props the phone on his shoulder as he hops on one foot, struggling to get his leg through his jeans— which isn’t the best idea with the bruises still fading on his ribs, but it’s fine. 

“Hello?” 

“Hello, is this Mr Tomlinson?”

“Who’s asking?” He’d like to know which paper this is from before shooting his mouth off, just in case it’s the Guardian or some other fancy paper. He stumbles a bit as he switches legs.

“This is Tyler Johnson from Pulse Music Group.”

Louis stops in his tracks, jeans stuck around his ankles. 

“Oh,” he says. “Um, yes, this is Louis Tomlinson. What can I do for you, sir?”

“Well, Louis, we’ve dug up some of the demos that you’ve sent us in the past and we’d like you to come in and speak with us about possibly signing on to a new album project we’ve got coming up.”

Louis wracks his brain to try to remember when he’d last sent them anything. He’s sent so many demos to so many places just trying to get someone to call back that he can’t quite remember any specifics. He doesn’t think it was very recent though, so he’s not quite sure why they are calling him now, but he doesn’t want to question it too much.

“Oh, wow. Um, I would love to, yeah.” 

“Cool, man. Listen, we’re going to be in London next week with the artist who asked for you, so we’d like you to come in then.”

“Yeah. Yes. Just name a time and I can be free.” 

Louis grabs an old envelope and a pen and writes down the meeting time, next Wednesday at noon, making a mental note to put it in his phone as soon as he hangs up. Tyler gives him the address, too —an office block in Kensington— and tells him to ask for him at the receptionist’s desk before ringing off.

Shit. Sure, Louis has sold some songs off but never to people like who Pulse writes for.

He quickly pulls up his jeans and heads to the sitting room, half in a daze.

“You get them off your back?” Niall asks, tongue sticking out slightly as he types on his phone. 

“Niall,” Louis says.

“What?” Niall looks up at him finally, setting his phone down once he gets a glance at what Louis is sure is his paler-than-average face. “What’s going on?”

“It wasn’t a gossip mag, it was a fucking music publishing company. They—They want to talk to me about working on an album. Me. On an album.” 

Niall’s eyes widen. “Oh my god. That’s amazing, Lou. Whose album?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t even ask. It doesn’t matter.” Louis probably should have asked because, _god, what if it’s someone he hates_ , but it’s a foot in the door. He can’t pass this up. 

If they decide to hire him, that is. 

“That’s really great, Louis. I’ll have to buy you a pint tonight, to celebrate.” 

“Like you would _buy_ a pint,” Louis laughs. 

Niall cackles. “True. I’ll pull you a pint on the boss’s tab, then.” 

“Besides, I haven’t gotten it yet. Maybe we should wait until Wednesday after I meet with them to celebrate.”

“Nonsense.” Niall waves his hand. “Of course you’ll get it. You’re the greatest songwriter I know.”

“Doesn’t count if I’m the only one.”

“Sure it does.”

It doesn’t, but Louis will take the compliment anyways. 

Fuck, a real writing gig. Louis tries to tamp down his excitement a little, just in case it doesn’t work out, but it still builds anyways. He might finally make something of himself after all. It’s something to be excited about.

* * *

Going back to work at the bar is kind of awful, his ribs sore every night that weekend after having to stand for so long and maneuver through crowds, and the pounding bass gives him a bit of a headache, but not even that dampens his mood.

However, as Monday turns into Tuesday, a subtle dread starts to build. Part of him says that he’s overthinking it, but most of him can’t help feeling like they got it wrong and called the wrong person. He went through the outbox of the email that he used for sending demos and he hadn’t sent them anything in over a year. Why now? 

It doesn’t make any sense that they just stumbled upon his demo again. As much as he wishes he could just pretend it does make sense, he feels obligated to acknowledge that it doesn’t, unwilling to be blindsided by the confirmation that it wasn’t him that they were looking for. He almost calls them to double-check that they’ve called the right person, but he stops himself at the last second.

It takes him a very long time to fall asleep on Tuesday night, the anxiety and self-doubt crawling their way up his throat. He almost wishes he had brought it up to Niall, but Niall’s been so worried ever since he got back from Ireland that Louis didn’t want to add to it. 

Stupidly, he finds himself wanting to call Nick, but he's still stuck in the limbo of trying to figure out what it means if he doesn't want a divorce, the gap between divorce and being husbands seeming like too far a leap. He knows he needs to figure that out before he tries to drag Nick into anything again. Well, drag him in more than he did last weekend.

Besides, Nick hasn't called him since Louis left his house, so he doesn't think calling Nick would be an option anyways. Nick obviously isn't in a hurry to speak to him. 

Louis doesn’t even know if Nick knows he’s a songwriter. The tabloid articles had mentioned it, but Nick never brought it up. Louis thinks of the songs that he’s been publicly credited with so far and while they aren’t that incriminating, Louis still would rather that Nick didn’t hear them. 

So, instead, he spends the night scrolling through Nick’s Instagram pictures and audio clips of the Breakfast Show, trying to sort out his feelings until he can’t keep his eyes open any longer.

* * *

The lobby of the artist’s label’s building is fitted in red, black, and white, with the receptionist sitting behind an imposing counter made of white marble. Louis picks at the pills on his trousers, feeling impossibly small, even in his nicest shirt and trouser set. 

Even though he knows that Pulse works with a few major artists, he hadn’t really allowed himself to imagine that he would be meeting with any more than an up-and-coming band or some indie act. Nothing that would require this sort of opulence. It’s becoming quite obvious that this person must be pretty good though, if they are signed to a label like this.

He feels stupid for not having looked up the address he was given—wishes he had had more time to prepare himself for a meeting at Columbia.

“Mr Tomlinson?” a voice calls from across the lobby, the same voice that was on the phone last week. 

Louis’s head jerks up and he sees a man striding towards him, dark hair and even darker eyebrows. Louis stands up, wiping his hands on his pants. He shakes the man’s hand when he gets close enough.

“Hello, I’m Louis Tomlinson,” he says, making sure to make eye contact.

The man smiles. “Nice to meet you, man. I’m Tyler Johnson, but you can call me Tyler. Let’s head this way,” he says, turning to lead back the way he came from. “Thanks for coming in today, H is really excited about it.”

Louis tries to wrack his brain for someone named ‘H’ but he comes up blank. “No, thank you. It’s, uh, a great opportunity,” he stammers, palms growing damp again. 

They stop at a glass door, Tyler pushing it open to reveal a small conference room with four people sitting around a long, black table. At the head of the table sits Harry Styles. Fuck.

Louis’s stomach erupts in butterflies, because that’s bloody gold-record-earning Harry Styles, before it drops abruptly. Because that might be gold-recording-earning Harry Styles, but that’s also Nick’s best friend, Harry Styles. 

Shame drains the blood from Louis’s face. Of course they didn’t just randomly find Louis or ask him to come in because of his talent. If he was really talented, they would have brought him in when he sent the demos a year ago. He feels stupid for not figuring it out sooner.

Harry seems to not notice Louis’s inner turmoil, looking at him over steepled fingers with a large grin on his face. “Louis! It’s so nice to meet you.” 

“Thank you for having me,” Louis says, trying not to show how uncomfortable he is. 

“How are you? Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?” Harry asks.

Louis declines. “No, I’m fine.”

“Okay, well let’s get right into it then,” Harry says, pushing his hair back from his face. “I know that, like, my last album isn’t really your style, or at least like the demos you sent. But, you know, I’ve really been doing some soul searching and stuff, and I really want this album I’m doing to be… honest. I really want to open myself up, right. And I was listening to what Grimmy sent me—”

“Nick?” Louis’s stomach drops impossibly further. Nick had listened to his songs, then. Fuck, did Nick ask Harry to set this up? Embarrassment claws at Louis’s throat. 

“Yeah, Nick Grimshaw. You know. Your ex-husband.”

 _Not my ex_ — wait. Louis’s breath stutters to a stop as he realises what Harry said. What Harry _knows_.

“What did you say?” he says, swallowing hard.

“Nick Grimshaw, big hair, terrible laugh— are you all right?” 

“Yes,” Louis forces out, not wanting to make a scene. _Who else has Nick told?_

“Right,” Harry says, warily. “Anyways, Nick sent me your songs and I thought the lyrics were great. Honest.”

Louis wonders if Harry knows just how honest they were. He also wonders how honest Harry is being and how much of this is a favour to Nick. Louis doesn’t know why Nick would do this, not when Louis did what he did, but there’s no way a gold-record-selling artist calls up someone like Louis if it isn’t a favour. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a handout at best, and Louis doesn’t deserve it. Not from Nick.

Louis responds out of rote, trying to remember what his song-writing pitch is. “Yeah, I, uh, I just think that music is only worth writing if it’s, um, honest. Gives people something to connect to, real emotions.”

Harry’s face lights up again, “Exactly. And that’s what I want this album to do.”

“Can I just—” Louis stops himself. 

“Go on. Ask anything you want,” Harry says, painfully earnest.

“Did Nick, like. Did he ask you to call me or something? Because I don’t want you to do this ‘cos you feel like you have to ‘cos Nick’s your friend,” Louis says. He’s sure he sounds stupid asking, but he has to know.

Harry’s brow furrows. “No, he didn’t ask me for anything. He just— well I shouldn’t, um, explain for him why he was showing me your songs. But, he doesn’t even know I asked you to come in. Besides, Louis, Nick’s great but I would never hire someone out of an obligation to a friend. I don’t work like that. And I want this album to be great, so I’m not like, going to hire someone just because someone asked me to. They have to be really great.”

Tyler jumps in, startling Louis. He had almost forgotten there were other people there. “Yeah, Louis, your stuff was really great. I don’t know why exactly we skipped over it the first time, but think of it as a lucky break.”

“If you’re interested, that is,” Harry adds.

The furrow of shame in Louis’s stomach lessens at the knowledge that this isn’t some favour to Nick or something. He’s still not sure why they think he’s good enough to write on this grand of a scale —he’s never even worked on a whole album before— but he doesn’t really want to question it that much. Truth is, he’s fucking tired of working at the bar and if this works out, he might eventually make enough money to quit and pursue song-writing full-time. Besides, he’s been trying to be better even since Nick left for London and this is his shot. He’s not going to pass it up.

“Yeah, of course I’m interested,” Louis says.

Harry beams. “Great, Louis. We should schedule some studio time, then. You, me, Tyler, and Mitch,” he motions to the man next to him, who’s been sitting stoically beside him the whole time. “See if we’re compatible. If it works out then, we can talk about some kind of contract maybe.”

“Okay, yeah. That sounds good.” Louis’s still nervous at the prospect of writing with someone this famous, but if he’s Nick’s friend, he must be all right. 

* * *

Louis heads home in a daze after they discuss the details of when they’re going to meet next. 

He keeps mulling it over in his head, why Nick would send Louis’s songs to Harry and why Harry knows about their marriage. They hadn’t been friends back when Nick and Louis were together. He pulls out his phone, intending to scroll through Instagram, but finds himself opening a message to Nick instead. Louis had always wondered if Nick had changed his number, but the fact the paramedics were able to get ahold of him suggests that he hasn’t.

Before he can second-guess it, he sends a message.

_Hey it’s Louis. Need to talk to you about some things. Can I come over?_

It looks daunting, spelled out like that, but Louis needs to know what Nick told Harry. Besides, he knows they can’t stay in this limbo forever, not divorced but not together. Someone is going to have to break eventually. Might as well be Louis.

He doesn’t exactly know what he wants from Nick anymore, or what Nick’s willing to give. He had thought that he wanted a divorce but after last weekend, he’s not so sure. It’s not just up to him, though. This album thing might come through for Louis, but it still doesn’t feel quite good enough for Nick and he’s afraid Nick might think the same.

His phone buzzes with a message from Nick followed by a second.

_I’m home right now, if you want to stop by?_

_Is everything okay??_

Fuck, that’s soon. Louis had been hoping that Nick would want to meet tomorrow, to give him some time to mull things over and get his head on straight. He gets off the tube at Victoria Station anyways, switching lines to Stoke Newington. Might as well get it over with. 

_I'm fine. I can come now._

_Send me your address?_

Louis’s phone buzzes with Nick’s address. He clicks the lock button on his phone and tries to breathe deeply all the way to Nick’s stop.

* * *

“Hey, Lou,” Nick says, opening his door. “I was just about to make a cuppa. Want one?”

“Sure,” Louis says. He bends down to pet Pig and Stinky before following Nick to the kitchen. 

“How are you feeling?” Nick asks as he fills the kettle with water from the tap.

“I’m good, yeah. Not really sore anymore.”

“That’s good.” Nick turns around after flipping the kettle on. “I’m glad to see my nursing skills were up to par.”

Louis laughs a little, looking at his feet. The silence is awkward for a moment before Nick breaks it. 

“You, uh, you look great, too. Very dapper.”

Louis picks at his trousers. “Thanks. I’m coming from a meeting.”

“Oh, and here I thought you were dressing up to see me,” Nick says.

“I see you didn’t return the favour,” Louis says, surprising himself with the joke. 

“Oi, I’ll have you know that I consider my Britney shirt to be my finest apparel.”

“I do know that, but I also know that you know that nobody agrees with you on that,” Louis says, the banter calming his nerves slightly. 

“Their loss, truly,” Nick shakes his head.

The kettle clicks off and Nick sets about making the tea. 

“So, not that I’m not happy to see you,” Nick says, back still turned to Louis, “but why exactly did you want to come over?” 

Louis swallows at that, nerves flaring again. “I had some questions.”

“Right. You said.”

Deciding to just spit it out, “Why did you tell Harry Styles we were married?”

Nick jerks at that, splashing hot water on his hand. “Shit.”

“Fuck, are you okay?” Louis makes an aborted step towards Nick, before deciding against it.

“Yeah, fine,” Nick says, shaking his hand out a little. He keeps his back to Louis. “When did you talk to Harry?”

“Today. That was my meeting.”

“What for?”

“You sent him my songs and apparently he liked them. Wants me to write with him.”

“Oh,” Nick says dumbly. “Yeah, I, uh, looked them up. Figured I should know as much about my husband as the Sun did.”

Louis thinks back to Saturday morning when he walked in on Nick listening to music on the computer. Had he been listening to Louis’s songs while Louis was in the room? Is that why they had sounded so familiar?

Fuck, Louis can’t think about that right now.

“Why did you send them to him?”

“I needed someone to tell me I wasn’t crazy. That I was hearing what I thought I heard.”

Louis feels his forehead crinkle at that. “What do you mean?”

“They didn’t make any sense.” Nick turns around, looking both sad and slightly frantic. “I mean, fuck, Louis. You broke up with me and then you’re— you’re writing all these songs about being heartbroken and how you never wanted it to end. Why would you write those?”

Louis’s face flames, but he tries to avoid the question. “Is that why you told him we were married?”

“No, I told him before. I met him right after we broke up and I was still pretty torn up about it.”

“What if he would have told someone? Or sold it to the press?” Louis asks.

“He wouldn’t do that,” Nick says, insistent. “He’s not a shitty person. I really missed you back then, and I just needed someone in London to know about it. Don’t fault me that.”

“Nick, I wouldn’t tell you who not to tell—”

Nick interrupts quickly, like he’s afraid he’ll lose the nerve to ask. “Why didn't you tell Lottie that we got married?”

“You didn’t tell her, did you?” Louis asks, wide-eyed. Lottie hadn’t mentioned anything about it, but she could just be waiting for him to fess up.

“No, no. That’s not my place,” Nick says, his quiet voice firm. He looks down, but not before Louis catches a glimpse of the sheen in his eyes. He must have been thinking about this for a while. “But why didn’t you? I know we agreed not to tell the public, but, god, I told my— my dad and my mum and my sisters and my brother and Harry, even. And you didn’t tell Lottie? Who did you tell?”

Nick looks up at Louis then, his eyes suddenly close to overflowing. Louis can’t look away, even though he desperately, desperately wants to.

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He’s not sure he can have this conversation. He doesn’t want to hurt Nick.

Nick keeps staring at him for several excruciating moments, until his face absolutely shatters. He half-groans, half-sobs, “You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”

Louis finally tears his eyes away from Nick, unable to deny it. He almost can’t say it, but he chokes it out. “No.”

“Oh my god,” Nick whimpers, like he almost believed the answer would be different. “I don’t— I don’t understand. I was just… I was so bloody _happy_ and I couldn’t wait to tell people about it. How could you— weren’t you happy? I thought you were happy.”

Louis doesn’t know what to say. He’s spent every day for longer than he can remember trying to forget how it felt that day in the registry office, watching Nick stand across from him, saying ‘I do’, those two words sounding better than any song Louis could ever even hope to write. 

Louis was so, so happy.

He wishes he could have held on to that feeling forever, tucked up right behind his ribcage; let it spread its roots until there was no room for anything else. He wanted to keep it safe from anyone who would try to extricate it, who would try to tell him that it was too early or that he was too young or that it would never work out. Hidden from anyone who could remind him that he didn’t deserve it. But it got loose anyways, swallowed up into the pit of inadequacy that stuck with Louis no matter how hard he tried to get rid of it.

Nick may have been happy then, but he would have eventually seen Louis’s inadequacy, too.

“I was happy,” he whispers, knowing that marrying Nick was the best thing he ever let himself have. 

“Were you?”

“Of course I was happy, Nick,” Louis says, taking a step closer to Nick. Nick had to know that. “How could you say that?”

“What am I supposed to think?” Nick says, exasperated. “You didn’t tell anyone, Louis. And fuck, I didn’t even know. I just went to London thinking that we were in the same place, that we were both in it together, but I don’t even know… it’s like you had one foot out the door from the very beginning and I was just too stupid to see it.”

“I didn’t, Nick. I loved you, you know that. You’ve heard the songs.”

“I don’t understand,” Nick says, pressing his palms against his eyes. 

“Nick, I… I’m sorry that I didn’t tell anyone,” Louis says. “I just didn’t know how to tell them and then you were off to London and I was still in Liverpool... and I just never got the chance. I was going to tell them at Christmas, when you were going to come home with me, but—”

But it was already too late.

Nick wipes his eyes. “What do you mean, you didn’t know how to tell them?”

“My mum had me so young and she just… she always wanted the best for me,” Louis says, feeling the familiar lump in his throat at the memories of his mum. “She was always telling me not to get tied down too young and to go out and live my life, and I don’t know. Getting married at a registry with two receptionists as witnesses didn’t really seem like something she’d be happy with.”

Nick looks up at Louis, his eyes red. “Do you regret it? Getting married?”

“No,” Louis says because it’s the truth. Maybe he should, but he doesn’t. 

Nick blows out a breath, wiping his eyes again. “I think I need a minute to process all this.”

“Oh,” Louis says awkwardly. “I can go.”

“No. We really should talk, I think. Can we just go in the sitting room or something? I need to sit down.”

“Okay,” Louis says, willing to allow Nick to dictate this. 

Nick hands him his mug before turning to go to the sitting room. They settle onto the sofa, both sipping quietly at their tea. It's a little lukewarm but Louis doesn’t say anything about it.

Nick nudges Louis’s foot. 

“Were you really going to throw me into the lion’s den with your mum?” Nick asks. “You know how scary she could get. Proper mum-like.”

Louis flushes. “Well, I didn’t want to tell her by myself. I thought maybe if you were there, she could be mad at you, too.”

“Would you have even warned me?” 

“I mean, yeah. Probably. Maybe.” Louis hadn’t gotten that far in his plan.

“You totally wouldn’t have,” Nick smirks.

Louis just shrugs. It might be true. 

Nick’s pauses for a moment, gathering his thoughts, it seems. He’s quiet when he speaks. “Did you mean it? When you said you didn’t regret marrying me?”

“Yeah, I meant it,” Louis answers.

“Did you regret not telling anyone?”

“I… I don’t know, really. At the time, I kind of wished they could just know without me having to tell them. But then… towards the end, I was glad they didn’t know.”

“Yeah, telling your parents your six-month-old marriage has failed isn’t very fun.”

Louis winces a bit at that. “I imagine not.”

“And they just kept asking me why and I felt so stupid because I didn’t know. I just… I thought we were happy. I thought everything was going to be all right. You were going to move to London eventually and I was going to come out and everything was going to be perfect. I was still so in love with you and then you just… weren’t.”

“How could you be happy with me, Nick? It doesn’t make sense. I was working at that shitty publishing house that I hated, reading shitty books that were never going to get published and you were a celebrity, basically. You were going out with the Geldofs and Alexa Chung, and fuck, everyone thought you were dating Kelly Osbourne. And then you were going to come out and say you were married to me? How was I going to measure up to Kelly?”

“Kelly and I were just mates,” Nick says.

“I know that. But still. You had all these celebrities. Why would you want me?”

“Maybe because I loved you? Or do you think I’m shallow enough to care about all that?” Nick asks, looking more than a bit offended.

“No,” Louis says quickly. “But everyone else is.”

Nick huffs out a breath. “I didn’t care about everyone else. I just cared about you. And then you said you didn’t want to come to London anymore and you stopped answering my calls.”

He almost answered more times than he can count, but he doesn't say that's “I couldn’t afford to live in Primrose Hill. I could barely afford our rent in Liverpool.”

“What are you— Louis, we were _married_ ,” Nick says, his exasperation clear. “I wasn’t going to ask you to go halfsies on the flat.” 

“You should have had someone who could be your equal, though.”

“You _were_ my equal. You were in every way that counts. I don’t care about the money or the status or anything like that.”

It's not true, really. He didn't have friends or a job he liked or any of the other things Nick had either. Besides, “That’s all London is. It’s a bloody popularity contest and we both know it. We may have worked back in our shitty flat back in Liverpool, but how was it ever going to work here? If I came to London back when you asked me to, I wouldn’t have had a job, Nick. And then what? You were going to announce that you had a husband who lived off you in a posh flat he didn’t belong in? Or better yet, were you going to wait until I got a shitty bartending job? ‘Radio One Host Settles for Barkeep’? How was that going to look?”

He knows what everyone would have said about it him. He didn't want to drag Nick down like that. Not when his career was just taking off.

“I don’t understand why you’re so caught up on what other people think.” Nick sets down his tea when it sloshes over his hand. “For fuck’s sake, who gives a shit about that? It’s not supposed to matter as long as we’re happy. It’s you and me who matter, not anyone else.”

“Maybe I didn’t want everyone to think you were stuck with someone like that. Maybe I didn’t want to be just a bartender or a jobless loser to everyone. Maybe that mattered to me. At least they got to call me a songwriter this time, even if I’m a shitty one at that.” It’s not much better, but it's something.

“You’re not. You literally just came from a meeting at Columbia.”

“Do you honestly think they would have cared about me if I hadn’t been papped with you or if you didn’t know Harry? No. They didn’t bloody care when I sent them demos a year ago.”

“Oh my god, that’s not why,” Nick says, free to throw up his hands now that he doesn't have to worry about spilling his tea. “You don’t just get a job because you’re friends with Harry Styles. It doesn’t work like that.”

That's what Harry had said, too, but it still has a hard time sinking in.

“It doesn’t matter, anyways. You know that’s what they’ll all think. That I’m just some— some hanger-on that can’t get anywhere in life without you.”

“Why do you always talk yourself down like that?” Nick’s exasperation blending into sadness. “I just want you to see what I see. Or what Lottie sees or Niall sees.”

“That’s not the same—”

“What ‘cos they’re not celebrities or paps or some person behind a computer at a shitty gossip mag? Why does that matter more to you than real people? None of that is real. None of it means shit.”

“It does, though. Most of your friends are famous, Nick.” It's like uni all over again, trying to fit in where he doesn't belong.

“Harry seemed to like you just fine. I’m sure the rest of my friends would, too. But that’s not even the point here.”

“What’s the point then?”

“The point is that you took into account everyone’s opinion but _mine_ ,” Nick says, exhaling heavily. “Fuck, I asked you to marry me, Louis. I meant it when I said that I wanted to be with you, that I was _proud_ to be with you. If you were going to try to self-sacrifice for my benefit, shouldn’t I have gotten a say in that? But you made that decision for me.” 

“I didn’t—”

“You did, though,” Nick says firmly.

Louis grapples for an explanation, still reeling over the unexpected direction this conversation has taken. He doesn't understand why Nick is saying all these nice things. “I didn’t want you to settle. You didn’t know you were going to London when we got married and I didn’t want to hold you back once you left.” 

“I didn’t know it was an either/or. I didn’t know that by choosing London, I was going to lose you. You never said that.”

“I wouldn’t have asked you to choose me over London,” Louis says, even though he doesn't think it would have been much of a decision anyways.

“Right,” Nick says flatly. “You just picked for me.”

“You wouldn’t have stayed.” Louis's sure of it.

“What do you want me to say, Louis?” Nick rubs at his temples. “We were both stifled in Liverpool, you know that. But we had talked about that. We decided, together, that we were going to move to London. You agreed to that. So what if I went a little early. We could have worked that out.”

“I just didn’t see how it was going to work.” He remembers seeing pictures of Nick going out all over London, how happy he looked. “You were going out all the time and doing all these great things, and you didn’t need me at home, a ball and chain. You needed options.”

“Ball and chain?” Nick's shakes his head. “Being with you wasn’t a fucking chore. I loved you. And I didn’t want options. I just wanted you in London with me and I wanted everything we promised each other. Sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, til death do us part. As sappy as it sounds, that’s all I ever wanted.”

It’s all Louis ever wanted, too. He just didn’t think he could have it. “You could have had anyone.”

Nick laughs bitterly. “Apparently not though, right? There weren’t exactly guys lining up at my door. Not when I was still bloody in love with someone else.”

Louis’s brow creases. “I don’t… why? I dumped you. You should’ve hated me or been mad at me. You shouldn’t have still been in love with me. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, that’s just rotten luck on my part then, isn’t it?” Nick sighs, the fight leaving his body. “Love doesn’t just stop because someone hurts you, Louis. And I’m not mad at you. Not really, anymore. You hurt me, yes. But I don’t understand why you think you’re inherently unworthy of love.”

Louis stiffens. “I don’t think that.”

“Don’t you, though?” Nick says, not unkindly. “You’re so obsessed with whether or not you were good enough to earn my love when you already had it. I didn’t need you to have a lot of money or be famous or anything like that. I just loved you, however you were. That’s all there was to it.”

“That’s not enough though, is it?” It seems too idealistic.

“I think it could have been. It felt like it could have been.” He sighs. “But, I don’t know. We never got to find out.”

Louis folds his shoulders in. “I’m sorry, Nick. Really, I am. I never meant to hurt you. I… I just wanted you to be happy.”

“I know, Lou.” Nick rubs at his eyes. “But you did hurt me. And apparently that doesn’t just go away with an explanation.”

“Where does that leave us now?” Louis wraps an arm around himself, the other still holding his tea.

“I don’t know.” Nick's hand drops from his face. “What you did really hurt and it hurt for a really long time.”

“Are we… over?” Louis says, his voice small. Even if they wanted to fix it, there’s so much to fix.

Nick looks at him intently. “Is that what you want?”

“I— I thought I did.” Nick’s face falls. Louis hurries on, “but now I’m not so sure. I think— I think there must have been a reason that we never sent the divorce papers. But it’s not just up to me. I don’t want to make that type of decision for you again.”

Nick stares back at his hands and Louis feels his own tremble slightly. “I spent a long time hoping that you would come back. But it’s not quite like I thought it would be. I thought that I would see you and all the hurt would go away, but it’s still there. And, I don’t know how to make that go away.”

Louis feels cold. “I can leave you alone, if you want. I’ll take you off as my emergency contact and I could say no to Harry, too. I know he's your friend so I wouldn't— I don't have to—”

“I wouldn’t ask you to do that,” Nick halts Louis's rambling. “I know writing with Harry is a big thing. And I don’t think I want you to go away. You already went away once. I don’t think I could go through that again. I just don’t know how much I can give you. I think I need some time to wrap my head around all this.”

Louis nods. “Of course.”

“It’s not— it won’t be forever.”

“As long as you need.” It's more than Louis probably deserves.

“Thanks,” Nick says, looking down at the floor.

He doesn’t speak for a few moments and Louis takes the hint. “I should probably go now then.”

Nick looks up again, opening his mouth like he’s going to say something before closing it again. He settles on, “Yeah, probably.”

Louis nods and puts down the tea mug he had forgotten he was holding, before heading towards the front door.

“Louis, wait,” Nick says suddenly.

Louis turns. “Yeah?”

“Why,” he hesitates again. Swallowing, he continues, “Why didn’t you tell me you were in London all this time?”

"I didn't think anything had changed," Louis says, looking at his feet.

“And now?”

He looks up at Nick. "I'm hoping it has."

* * *

> When Nick proposed, it was more of a suggestion than anything.
> 
> Louis had been out of uni for almost a year, eight months into a job at a publishing house editing manuscripts. He was the youngest one there, so he always got the worst ones, just a pitstop on the way to the rejection pile. 
> 
> Nick had been graduated for three years, still working at the local radio station gig that he had scored right out of uni. He’d started out doing a daytime slot before eventually moving to the weekend breakfast slot, one step closer to his dream of doing the Breakfast Show. 
> 
> They’d both been applying for jobs in London. Louis had still been dead set on the idea that he should be using his English degree to the fullest, so he had applied to any publishing house that was hiring, with little luck. It must have been obvious to all of them that he didn’t really want to be doing that kind of work, evidenced by the fact that he was pretty awful at his current job. He had just hated reading manuscript after manuscript of people spewing all of these stories that seemed like, for lack of a better word, bullshit. Opportunities for Nick had seemed few and far between,too, so at least they were in the same boat. 
> 
> Louis remembers the day the proposal happened. It was late in March and they were sitting on the sofa, drinking some cheap wine that Nick had insisted on buying in celebration. _It’s a historic night, Louis. We’re witnessing history._ They stayed up until midnight, watching as the clock struck twelve, both of their eyes a little misty. 
> 
> “We could do it now, you know. We could get married. Legal husbands and everything,” Nick said in awe.
> 
> Louis laughed, giddily caught up in how momentous the moment felt. “Husbands. Could you imagine?”
> 
> Nick looked at him, contemplative, before a warm grin took over his mouth. “We should.”
> 
> “Should what?”
> 
> “Get married. Me and you,” Nick said. 
> 
> At that very moment, Louis couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than that. He didn’t think about the repercussions or the details or anything of the sort. He had just given into the warm feeling spreading from heart out to the tips of his fingers, the soft look in Nick’s eyes, the historical moment. Didn’t think about the fact that just because they could get married, it didn’t mean they should.
> 
> Instead, he pulled Nick in for a wine-stained kiss, pulling back only to whisper, “Okay.”
> 
> * * *
> 
> A month later, they were married. A month after that, Nick was gone.

  
* * *  


When he gets home from Nick's, Niall is waiting for him on the sofa. 

__

“Tommo! How’d it go, lad?” he calls out, beaming at Louis. Louis can’t reciprocate it.

He sits down heavily next to Niall. “I think… I think I’m going to cry and I need you not to be weird about it, okay?” he says, voice cracking embarrassingly at the end. He’d been fighting tears the whole tube ride home, his mind a constant reel of what Nick had said playing over and over again. He knows he can’t hold it in much longer.

“Oh, lad.” Niall’s face falls. He reaches out for Louis, pulling him into a hug. Once Louis’s face is tucked securely over Niall’s shoulder out of view, he lets go. Tears run down his face mostly silent, Niall rubbing his back every time his breath hitches in his throat. 

He hasn’t let himself think about it in a long time, what it was like feeling Nick slipping through his grasp as he lost him to London. He remembers the countless nights when he would return home from the office, wanting nothing more than to commiserate with Nick, but Nick was never there. Instead, he was posting pictures from some party or with some friend that Louis didn’t even know the name of, looking decidedly not miserable. His face was splashed out on the cover of the magazines in the supermarkets, bright smiles as he slid out of clubs and into cabs, back to a flat that Louis had never even seen. 

He had felt alone and forgotten. Worthless. 

It wasn’t Nick’s fault, really. He did his best to call when he was free and texted sporadically when he wasn’t. It wasn’t his fault that he was out doing things, rather than sinking into the sofa every night and wishing he could do something more with his life. Wallowing was Louis’s thing, not Nick’s. 

It wasn’t Nick’s fault that Louis hadn’t seen Nick’s flat either. He had asked Louis to come several times, begged even, but Louis never went. He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t see this new life that Nick had built without him and how it was so much better than the one they had together. The one Nick left. 

The whole way home he had tried to reconcile all that he had thought he knew with what Nick claimed. Tried to match up his memories with Nick’s, the way that Louis had felt left behind with the way Nick had apparently wanted Louis, all happening simultaneously. How Louis had never been surer of the fact that he wasn’t right for Nick, while Nick had been so sure that he was. 

It’s painful, when he thinks about it like that. If Nick is being honest, if he really loved Louis the whole time until the end, and even after, well. Louis must have shattered his heart. 

Niall at least waits until Louis is breathing smoothly again before pulling back, trying to spare Louis some embarrassment. He’s a good lad. 

“Did it go that badly?” It takes a moment for Louis to figure out what he’s asking, before he remembers the meeting with Harry. Niall looks downtrodden, like he had sincerely thought that Louis would get the gig. Best lad.

“They want to bring me in for a few sessions. See where we go from there,” Louis says.

Niall’s clearly confused. “Are these… happy tears then?”

Louis feels his face crumple slightly at that. “No,” he says thickly. “The meeting was great. But I went to Nick’s after and that was… not great.”

“Oh, Lou.” Niall frowns. “What happened? Was he a dick to you? Because I could have a word with him, if you’d like. Bring Bressie along, be proper intimidating.”

“No,” Louis chuckles wetly. “No. It wasn’t like that. We just talked about some stuff from the past and it's dumb that I’m even upset about it when it happened so long ago but apparently I still am.” 

“When what happened? I know you two were a thing before we met, but you never said why it ended.” Louis doesn’t say anything for a moment, trying to figure out how to say it. He’s never had to say it to anyone else. “We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t—”

“We were married,” Louis says. “Or are married, I guess.”

“What?” Niall eyes are wide, mouth slack. “You never said.”

“No, I— I never told anyone.” 

“But, why?” Niall’s asks, brow furrowed. “You have a husband and no one knew about it?”

“Well, Nick told his family and some of his friends, I guess. But I just… never did.”

“Not even your mum?” Niall asks, quietly.

Louis’s eyes fill at that. “No.”

Niall pulls Louis into another hug. “Oh, Lou,” he sighs.

“I think I fucked up, Niall,” Louis says into Niall’s collarbone. “I think I really fucked up.”

“Can you fix it?” Niall asks, ever the pragmatic one in their friendship. 

“I don’t know. Nick says I hurt him really badly and I didn’t even really know.”

Louis hadn’t been able to listen to the radio after he ended it with Nick, breaking his habit of listening every night, clinging to what little of Nick he could get without inconveniencing him. It had been too hard to hear his voice, though. To imagine listening to him go on and be happy, when Louis still felt so fucking pathetic. 

It lasted for two months, until the story of Nick’s coming out broke to the press, the story that didn’t include Louis anymore. He had turned on the radio, wanting to hear the words from Nick’s mouth, rather than printed on a page. He remembers Annie Mac asking _“Any more secrets you’re keeping from us, Nick? Any secret boyfriends hanging around?”_ and he remembers crying harder than he had any right to when Nick had said, voice like ice, _“Nope. No one worth mentioning.”_

Maybe it had been naive of Louis, to think that Nick had moved on so quickly, but he had. Nick never slipped up on the radio, never let anyone know he was still hurting, and without anything else to go on, Louis had thought it was true. 

“We all make mistakes, Louis. We all hurt people sometimes, even if we try not to.”

“I don’t know,” Louis says, noncommittal.

Niall leans back so he can look at Louis’s face. “I know you, okay? And I know that you don’t hurt people on purpose. You’re beating yourself up about this and you don’t need to.”

“You don’t even know what happened, though.”

“Tell me, then.”

Louis blows out a breath. He had resigned himself for so long to just living with this, carrying the weight of this secret by himself, but he doesn’t want to do that anymore. He can’t hold on to the weight of it anymore. So he tells Niall about meeting Nick and falling in love with Nick and marrying Nick. Then he tells him about breaking Nick’s heart. 

“Nick kept talking about me moving to London and him coming out, with me as his husband, and I couldn’t do it. I just called him one day and told him that I didn’t want to move to London with him anymore. That I didn’t want to be with him at all anymore. And then I just didn’t answer his calls. I just pushed him away.”

Louis wonders now if it was some kind of latent defence mechanism to shield himself from seeing Nick’s pain. Like maybe he _had_ known that he was hurting Nick, but if he didn’t have to see it, he could pretend like it wasn’t that bad. Like Nick would just get over it.

“I thought he would just go find someone better. Someone who fit.”

“What do you mean?” Niall says.

“It didn’t make any sense, right?” he doesn’t sound as convinced as he did at Nick’s, feeling unsure of it now. “He was a celebrity and I was just a nobody. And all I could think was that there was no way he could want people to know that he had settled for me.”

“Louis, you’re not a nobody. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never been a nobody. You’ve always been the brightest person I know,” Niall says, earnest. “I don’t know Nick, but I know he wasn’t settling. And you don’t have to understand why a person loves you, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love you.”

It’s not like Louis wanted to feel like a nobody. His mum had worked so hard to instill in him that he was somebody and in Donny, he was. He was always the ringleader of his friends, the smartest and the fastest and the funniest. But in Liverpool, it was different. He felt like an imposter all the time, wading his way through his classes, never really the best at anything. The one good thing about Liverpool was Nick and, at some point, it seemed like Nick was the one good thing about Louis, too.

When Nick had left for London, that feeling grew and grew, until it somehow consumed Louis without him even noticing. 

“You don’t still think that, do you?” Niall asks, breaking Louis out of his thoughts.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how to make it go away.” Louis shrugs, his shoulders curving inward. “It’s like no matter what I do I just feel like this stupid kid who isn’t going to amount to anything.”

“Lou…” Niall says. Louis chances a look at his face, expecting to find pity but Niall just looks sad. “You’ve gotta stop doing that, mate. I know things haven’t been going exactly how you wanted them to, but you’re not a failure. You can’t keep putting yourself down like that.”

“How do I stop, though?” Louis says. He keeps trying to feel better about himself, but it never quite sticks.

“I don’t know exactly,” Niall says truthfully. “But look at you. You just got a writing deal with…”

“Harry Styles,” Louis mumbles.

Niall’s eyes bulge a little. “Holy fuck, Harry Styles? That's great, Lou. See, you’re not a failure. Not even close.”

Louis can't match his enthusiasm.“I don’t know, the whole time I just kept thinking that it was something to do with Nick. Like, without Nick I wouldn’t have got it. How am I supposed to be good enough for Nick if I can’t achieve things on my own?”

He knows that everyone keeps saying that he didn't get the gig because of Nick, but he can't shake the feeling that Nick is at least part of the reason he's being considered.

“Love’s not about that, Lou. It’s not about, like, what you have or what you achieve. It’s just about who you are.” Niall claps him on the shoulder. “And it’s great that you got this deal, but it doesn’t make you a better person or more worthy. You’re just as worthy as you’ve ever been.” 

“But I have to have something to offer, right? That's how it works.” 

Niall thinks for a moment. “What if Nick had never gotten the Breakfast Show? What if he was still just working at the local radio and you got this big deal? Would you leave him just because you got popular and were hanging out with Harry Styles? Would that make you love him any less?”

“No,” Louis says quickly. “Of course not.” 

“Then why couldn’t Nick still love you?” Niall says. 

Louis mulls it over. It had all seemed so clear, so obvious, when he was back in Liverpool. Obviously, he wasn’t right for Nick and obviously, Nick needed someone better. He hadn’t ever really thought about how Nick felt or what Nick wanted. 

The truth is that it’s not so uneven between them now. If Louis gets this writing deal, he could potentially afford to live in a posh flat like Nick’s in Primrose Hill; well, he could probably only afford to pay half of it. But still, he’s not the same kid from Liverpool stuck in a job he hates, with pipedreams of doing something better, using the excuse of putting his degree to use to avoid the possibility of failure. He pushed past that fear. He quit his job at the publishing house and pursued his dreams. Sure, his mum pushed him to do it, but ultimately, he was the one who moved to London and sent all those demos. 

Perhaps Nick was the part of the reason that Louis got offered this deal. Nick said you don’t just get jobs because you know Harry Styles, but he surely wasn’t getting many without him. He doesn’t really know how to let go of that yet, but he thinks that maybe he could. He’s tired of denying himself the things that he wants because he doesn’t feel worthy of them. He could let go of that fear, too. Except—

“It’s not up to me now, though. I can’t make that type of decision for him.”

“Well, of course you can’t.” Niall rolls his eyes playfully. “It’s a relationship. It should be mutual.”

“He said that he didn’t know if he could do it again,” Louis says. “I might have fucked up too badly.”

“You’ll just have to give him some time, then,” Niall says. “But he came to the hospital without hesitating, so I think it’s safe to say he still cares about you. And his best friend wants to work with you, so he must not think you’re a twat.”

Louis laughs once. “Maybe. What about his career though? I can’t imagine a hidden marriage will go over very well.”

“I think that’s up to Nick to decide. But, I think you should think about if you’re ready to get back together with him, too,” Niall says. “Even with all the press and everything. Nick’s a bigger celebrity than he was back then.”

Louis thinks about it for a moment, his stomach twisting at the idea of everyone knowing about them, or thinking they know things about them, or what it could do to Nick’s career. But then he thinks about Nick and how being with him that weekend had felt just like it used to. How much he had missed it. He thinks he could put up with some potentially bad press in exchange for that, if Nick was up for it. 

“I think it would take some getting used to,” Louis says. “But being afraid of what everyone else thought got me into this mess in the first place. And I’m tired of letting that fear win.”

Niall pulls him into an unexpected hug, ruffling his hair a bit.

“Oi,” Louis protests half-heartedly.

“Just proud of you, Lou,” Niall says, embarrassingly sincere.

“Stop it,” Louis laughs.

Niall lets go, scooting back to his end of the couch. He wipes away fake tears. “My little boy is growing up.” 

“You’re such a dickhead.” Louis pushes at Niall's shoulder, smiling anyways. 

“Well, if we’re done with this little heartfelt chat,” Niall says, “I think you’re obligated to tell me about Harry Styles.”

Louis rolls his eyes at Niall’s obvious heart-eyes, but obliges.

* * *

Writing with Harry goes much better than Louis expected after their meeting a few days before.

It’s a little awkward at first, mainly because Harry won’t stop apologising for ‘causing a row between you and Nick.’ Louis tries to explain that it wasn’t because of him, but Harry keeps going on about how he shouldn’t have gone behind Nick’s back or how he should have let Louis know that it was him he was meeting with. Louis is more than a little suspicious that Nick had given Harry a hard time after Louis left on Wednesday. 

Eventually, though, Harry drops it and they get into writing. Mitch and Tyler are there, too, giving input when needed, but Louis is surprised to find that he and Harry don’t need much input. They work together remarkably well, always seeming to be on a similar wavelength. It’s a bit creepy, to be honest, how tuned in to each other they are. 

By the end of the session, Harry has officially offered to have Louis write on the rest of the album as well. Louis tries not to show his disbelief, internally grappling with how only two weeks ago, he was sure that he was going to have to work odd jobs forever while writing songs in his spare time and now, he’s going to be doing it for money he could maybe live on. It doesn’t feel quite real.

As they are packing up, Mitch and Tyler already gone, Harry pauses before turning to Louis. “Hey, I’m sorry if this is overstepping and I know you said I didn’t have to apologise again, but I just wanted to say that I am sorry for causing any tension between you and Nick. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to know about the marriage or anything.”

“It’s not— it’s Nick’s decision to tell whoever he wants,” Louis says.

“I think he just needed someone to talk to, you know. He was just so sad.”

Louis looks down at the ground at that. “I know.”

‘“But, I thought he was okay with it now. Like, after you came back into his life, he seemed kind of happier. I mean, kind of more sad, too. But, like, definitely happier at the same time,” Louis isn’t sure he follows exactly, if what Harry is saying is a good or bad thing.

“Okay…” he says, feeling his brow furrow.

“I just thought it could be good, you know, if you were friends, again. Or, I thought you would be friends. So, it didn’t seem like it’d matter if I met with you because soon, you’d be friends anyways. I mean, I don’t know, now. Maybe I’ve watched too many rom-coms. But like. That’s what I thought,” Harry frowns, his face an almost comical grimace. Louis thinks he looks a bit like a fish.

“I don’t know if we’ll be friends again,” Louis says. “I think I’d like to. But, it’s not really up to me, is it?”

“No, I suppose not,” Harry says and Louis wonders just how much Nick told him. “Nick’s pretty forgiving, though, you know. Between me and you, I think he’ll come around.”

The hope held beneath Louis’s ribs flares at that, before Louis tries to tamp it back down a bit. “I don’t know. I think I’ll just have to wait and see.”

“That’s all we can do, isn’t it?” Harry says, humming to himself. He looks down at his phone. “Oh shoot, I have to go. I was supposed to meet Camille at two.”

Louis looks down at his phone. It’s five to. “You better hurry, mate.” 

Harry scrambles to get his stuff together, rushing towards the door. He stops in the doorway, throwing a quick glance over his shoulder. “It was really great to see you again, Lou. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“You, too,” Louis says, but Harry’s already out the door.

* * *

Louis finds himself hovering over the call button on Nick’s contact several times over the next few days, but can never make himself press it. Now that he’s decided that he’s going to try if Nick decides that he still wants him, he really just wants to know if Nick does want him. Still, he doesn’t want to cross any boundaries. He’s determined to give Nick the time he asked for.

It turns out he doesn’t have to wait too long. 

A few days after his first writing session, while he’s sitting at home watching an episode of Top Gear, his phone buzzes with an incoming text. He nearly drops his phone when he realises that it’s Nick, but he saves it at the last moment. 

The text is a picture of Pig and Stinky lying on the couch that Louis had slept on when he was there. Under the picture it says, _I think they miss you_.

Louis’s heart squeezes at the thought that perhaps Nick had missed him, too, but he tries to keep it light. He doesn’t want to make a fool out of himself by making assumptions.

_Of course they do. I snuck them biscuits when you weren’t looking._

Louis tries to concentrate on the telly while he’s waiting for a response, but he doesn’t really succeed. Nick answers after a moment.

_You didn’t!!_

_Is that why they’ve been eyeing my hobnobs all week?_

Louis laughs at that before another text comes in.

_Why the hobnobs? You know they’re my favourite._

Louis did know. Nick never used to let them do a shop without sneaking a few packets in.

_At least they weren’t chocolate ones._

Nick texts, _Well, I should hope not. Don’t need sick dogs and a sick husband._

Louis feels a bit of his nerves settle at that, hoping that it’s a good sign that Nick is still joking about it. _Would have put your vom cleaning to the test._

 _Good story for the radio, too, I suppose_ , Nick replies.

Except that Nick couldn’t say husband. It would have to be ‘friend’. Maybe everyone would think it was Harry Styles. _You think if you said your friend did it, they would think it was Harry ?_

_Might do. He did vom on the street once. Proper shrine and everything._

Louis remembers that story. _They could put a shrine in your living room. Harry Styles Threw Up Here_

_Nah, last thing he needs is another shrine._

Louis sends back a few laughing emojis, not sure what else to say. He waits for Nick to send something back, but he doesn’t. He settles back into the sofa, trying to pretend like he’s not going to make Niall go over the texts in detail with him later. 

* * *

Nick texts him again, waking him up unbearably early. Louis rubs at his eyes, wincing at the brightness of his screen. This time, it’s a picture of computer screen Louis’s seen on Nick’s Instagram stories, showing that Fluorescent Adolescent is playing on the radio. Louis wonders if Nick is thinking about how they used to listen to it together.

 _Sick tune mate !!_ , he sends. He flushes at the thought of everyone in England hearing this song, not knowing about Louis and Nick dancing to it in their shitty flat.

Nick sends back the winky face with its tongue out and the running man emoji. Louis’s not sure what that means, so he just sends back a thumbs up in response. 

He’s almost back to sleep when his phone buzzes again. 

_Didn’t think you’d be up_

He wouldn’t be normally, not after a night shift at the bar, but he doesn’t want Nick to feel bad for waking him up.

 _Woke from my kip 20 mins ago. Couldn’t get back to sleep_ , he lies instead.

Nick texts back, _should count some sheep_. Then, _Fi says I have to go. Hope you fall back asleep_ with three sheep emojis at the end.

Louis tries to for a while, before finally giving up and opening iPlayer to listen to Nick instead. 

* * *

The next time, it’s Louis who texts first. He’s run to Tesco with Niall in between the end of a writing session and the beginning of their bar shift. They’re in the biscuit aisle, so he snaps a picture of a hobnob packet and sends it, no caption. 

The nerves tangle in his stomach, threatening to crawl up his throat in the time it takes Nick to answer, unsure whether he should have waited for Nick to text him first again. The knots loosen when he gets a text back.

 _Oi, you going to replace mine? The dogs have been asking for them_ , Nick responds.

Louis debates for a moment, before sending _Could do. Even deliver them, if you want_ with shaking thumbs.

It takes Nick a few minutes to answer, Louis’s worry growing the longer it takes for Nick to text back, afraid he’s been too forward. He watches the dots that show Nick is typing appear and disappear a few times before he puts his phone back in his pocket. By the time he gets another text, they’re already by the dairy products.

_It’s only fair probably. Maybe you could bring them over for Love Island._

_Since we missed it when you were here last time._

Louis is stunned at the response, not expecting Nick to invite him over. It’s obviously not a romantic invitation, but he hadn’t even expected a platonic one. He'd planned on just dropping the biscuits off. While he’s mulling this over, he gets two more texts.

_Only if you wanted to. You don’t have to of course._

_I can just tell the dogs you’re busy._

He texts back quickly, _No I want to_. He adds, _For the dogs of course_.

 _Of course_ , Nick replies. _8? We could get a takeaway_.

Louis texts back to confirm, his palms sweating a bit. He knows that nothing is going to happen while he’s there, but he can’t help but be nervously excited at the prospect of seeing Nick again, even if it’s only platonic.

He makes Niall go back down the biscuit aisle so he can grab a pack of hobnobs to bring to Nick’s. He even throws a few chocolate ones in, too. 

* * *

He’s changed his outfit several times already, but nothing feels right.

“Didn’t you already try on those trackies with that hoodie?” Niall asks, his face upside down where he is hanging off of Louis’s bed. “Or was it that hoodie and the black trackies? I’m losing track.”

“Neil, if you’re not going to help me, you can kindly fuck off,” Louis says.

Niall flips over, his face a blotchy red from being inverted. “I’m just saying, mate, you’re just trying on the same clothes in different colours.”

“They’re not the same—” Louis sighs in exasperation. “What do you know anyways, with your paddy caps? Not exactly the tip top of fashion, are you?”

“Eh, I like them.” Niall shrugs. “If you’re really trying to impress him, shouldn’t you be wearing your pulling trousers? Isn’t that what tonight is about?”

“No! There will be no shagging tonight.” Louis blushes furiously. “Just two friends eating takeaway and watching Love Island. No funny business.” At least Louis doesn’t think there will be. “Besides, I should be myself, right? That way Nick can go running sooner rather than later.”

“Hey, what did we talk about?” Niall says. Louis internally scolds himself. He knows he needs to try to lay off the self-deprecation thing. It’s gotta be annoying to be around all time. Hell, he’s even annoying himself with it now.

“Sorry. But trackies are okay, right?” Louis is second-guessing it now. He is going to Nick’s house after all. What if he gets papped outside or something? Maybe he should go with something more smart instead. Fuck, the only smart trousers he has are already dirty.

“I can see you over-thinking it, Lou,” Niall thankfully cuts off Louis’s inner debate. “You should definitely wear the trackies, you’re right. And if he’s not impressed by your matching tracksuits, well then… well then, he’s a cunt.”

“Niall!” Louis says, secretly pleased. _That’s right_ , he thinks, _fuck anyone who can’t appreciate a good tracksuit_. 

“Just saying.” Niall props his chin on his hands, looking over Louis intently. Louis fidgets with the hem of his hoodie. “I’ve never seen you this nervous about a date.”

“It’s not a date,” Louis says, ignoring Niall’s eye-roll. “But it’s important, right? Like, what if I fuck it up and he doesn’t want to see me anymore? Or wants a divorce?”

Louis isn’t sure where all this vulnerability is coming from lately, but he kind of wishes he could stop just saying whatever insecurity pops in his head.

“He’s not going to divorce you just because you wear trackies for telly night.”

“I know that,” Louis says, rolling his eyes this time. “It’s not about the trackies. I just don't understand. Why now? Why didn’t he contact me before this attack thing happened if he still wanted to talk to me? It could just be pity, you know.” 

Apparently, the word vomit is here to stay.

“Louis, you dumped him. That’s not really fair to expect him to call you, when you were the one who ended it,” Niall says. Louis winces, but it’s a good point.

“I don’t even know what I’m saying. Ignore me,” Louis says, rubbing a hand over his forehead. He really needs to get a grip if he has any hope of seeming even somewhat normal around Nick tonight, but he still feels staticky with nerves thinking of their last encounter.

Niall stands up from the bed and presses up against Louis’s side, hanging off him a bit like a limpet. “It’s going to be fine, Tommo. You’re bringing him hobnobs. What more could a lad want?”

“Chocolate ones, too,” Louis murmurs.

“Exactly. He’ll be falling all over you, bright blue tracksuit and all,” Niall feigns a swoon, leaning even more weight on Louis. Louis is glad he isn’t treating him like he’s fragile anymore like he did when he got back from Ireland, but he’s deceivingly heavy. Louis lands a solid nipple twist, making Niall dance away as he bats at Louis’s hand.

“Oi!” Niall grins. He moves towards the doorway, making to leave. “I’m going to go make some food since not all of us have boys to buy us takeaway.”

Louis is going to pay for his part of the takeaway, of course, because this isn’t a date, but he has to hide his pleased grin at that anyways.

* * *

Louis’s proper bricking it when he rings Nick’s doorbell, no matter how many times he repeats _it’s not a date, it’s not a date, it’s not a date,_ because even if it’s not a date, it’s an evening alone with his sorta-kinda-husband who he sorta-kinda would _like_ to date, with no caretaking obligations or arguments about pop stars to be found— and that is terrifying. 

He’s busy looking down Nick’s street for paps — _do they actually hide in bushes or is that a cliche?_ — when he’s startled by a voice behind him.

“What are we looking at?’ Nick says and Louis jumps so much almost drops the hobnobs. He turns to look at Nick, who is also in a hoodie and joggers, and ends up shoving the biscuits into Nick’s chest. 

__“Here. Got these for you.”_ _

__Nick examines the package before a grin breaks out across his face. It’s Louis’s favourite type of grin, all wide. “I didn’t think you would actually get them.”_ _

__“Oh,” Louis says, scuffing his toe into Nick’s doorstep, his face burning faintly. “But you said—”_ _

__“Well, I’ll take them, of course. I just meant that you didn’t literally owe me them. I didn’t actually invite you over just for some biscuits,” Nick says. He turns to walk into his house and Louis follows. “I’m glad you did though. I’m bloody starving. I was thinking we could get a Domino’s but we’ll have to wait a bit for that to come.”_ _

__They pause in the front hallway for Louis to take his sneakers off._ _

__“I like your tracksuit, by the way. It's a sick blue,” Nick says and the tips of Louis’s ears burn. He doesn't think Nick's taking the piss, but he doesn't know for sure. He feels stupid but he wants Nick to think that he's cool. That he could fit in next to Nick._ _

__“I know it's not like runway or anything,” Louis says, tugging at his sleeve. Nick could probably date a model if he wanted. Has dated them, if the tabs are telling the truth._ _

__“Nonsense. Much better than my set.” He motions to his own mismatched outfit, the joggers frayed a bit at the bottoms. “Besides, you could model for Fenty. Athleisure chic. Oh, some highlight would be dead nice on those cheekbones of yours, too.”_ _

__Louis doesn't really understand what Nick is saying, but his belly warms anyways at the thought that Nick might still find him attractive. “I'm a little short for the runway, I think.”_ _

__“Well, I didn't say it, darling,” Nick drawls. Louis pushes a laugh past his coated throat._ _

__“Can't all be giants,” he mutters._ _

__They turn the corner to the sitting room and both of the dogs’ heads whip up from where they were laying on the rug. They’re across the room in no time, barrelling into Louis’s legs. Louis pets them, grateful for the distraction from his overwrought nerves._ _

__“Louis?” Nick calls from over by the kitchen, phone in hand. “Is Domino’s good?”_ _

__“Yeah,” Louis says, his voice cracking a bit. He tries to clear his throat discreetly. “Ham, pepperoni, and jalapenos, if that’s all right.”_ _

__“Okay, I’ll go ahead and order. Feel free to settle in,” Nick says before wandering farther into the kitchen._ _

Louis looks at the sofa unsure of where to sit. If he sits in the middle, it’s too much like a date, but if he sits on one of the ends, then he might not give Nick the right vibes. Not that tonight is the night for those kind of vibes, but like. He doesn’t want to make it totally platonic. _Get it together, Tomlinson._

__He chickens out of taking the middle spot in the end, tucking himself into the corner of the sofa instead._ _

__* * *_ _

__Nick settles into the other end of the sofa when he comes back from ordering, bringing two beers with him. He flips on the telly and Louis tries to tell himself to relax, to stop making it so fucking awkward. He’s disappointed because it wasn’t this awkward when he was here after the hospital, doing the same thing they are now. It must have been the pain meds dulling the nerves, or maybe the assumption that nothing was going to come of their brief reunion._ _

__Except that maybe now it might not be brief. Or maybe it will be. Louis doesn’t know._ _

__Nick hasn’t acknowledged the tension, which means he’s either a) not noticed it or b) is too nice to say anything about it. It’s probably b. Eventually, though, Louis starts to relax, chiming in on what Nick’s random comments rather than just letting him natter on._ _

__By the time the Domino’s arrives, he’s finished off his beer and starting a new one, making everything feel a bit looser. By the time Love Island ends and half of the hobnobs Louis brought have been eaten, it feels almost as easy as it used to be, except for the sea of sofa between them._ _

__“So, did you ever get ahold of your mum after the hospital?”_ _

__Oh, and there’s that, too. The subtle reminders that Nick hasn’t been a part of Louis’s life in a long time._ _

Louis takes a deep breath; this part never gets any easier. “No, she’s, um. She died.” He’s still getting used to the weight of that on his tongue, how to fit it through his teeth. He finds it’s better sometimes to just punch it out, the words losing power after a while. _She died, she died, she died_. Lottie hates when he says it blunt like that, but somehow it’s easier. “So, like. That's why they couldn't reach her.” 

__“Oh, I didn’t know,” Nick says, his face crumpling. “I’m… I’m really sorry to hear that, Lou.” Those words lost their power after a while, too. Louis appreciates Nick’s effort anyways._ _

__“It’s okay.” It's not really, but, “It's been a while.”_ _

__“When?” Nick says, before tacking on hastily, “If you don’t mind me asking.”_ _

__“December of last year. We found out in May, though, that she was… terminal. So,” Louis trails off, not sure what to say. Nick lets him think for a minute and it’s nice. Most people try to fill up the silence with useless platitudes and Louis hates it. “It was hard,” Louis says after a few moments, “and I still miss her but it’s— It’s okay now, I think. Hard still, but more… bearable.”_ _

__“Of course,” Nick says, his mouth quirking up into a sad smile. He’s quiet for a moment. Then, “My dad passed away last December, too. So I know what you mean, I think.”_ _

__Louis hadn’t known. “I’m really sorry to hear that, Nick.” He knows from experience that the words are woefully inadequate but he doesn’t know what else to say. Instead, he reaches out a hand tentatively, to rest on top of Nick’s. Nick looks down at it, contemplating it for a moment. Louis almost pulls back, but Nick flips his hand over, locking their fingers together._ _

__Nick looks up at Louis, their eyes meeting. Nick’s face is open, his eyes warm even in their sadness. Louis wonders what his face looks like, knows he’s always been the more guarded of the two. He still hasn’t mastered how to wear grief without it crushing him yet either, closing himself off to it around others._ _

__He looks away but they sit like that for a long time, caught up in their own memories, a hand to anchor them._ _

__* * *_ _

__It becomes a thing over the next few weeks, Louis going to Nick’s on Thursdays to watch crap telly and eat takeaway. They never explicitly call it a thing, but every week, one text leads to another and Louis inevitably finds himself opposite the sofa from Nick. They never talk about anything substantial really. Instead, Louis just knows much more about Love Island than he ever cared to._ _

__By the fourth week, Louis is feeling frustrated. He’s been working his normal night shift five times a week, plus spending most weekdays in the studio writing with Harry. He’s exhausted and he’s drained and he’s running out of the mental energy to try and figure out what is going on between him and Nick._ _

__He had thought at the end of their argument weeks ago, Nick had been hinting that he wanted more from Louis, but now he’s not so sure. Sure, Nick keeps inviting him over but he doesn’t do anything. Louis knows that he said he would wait as long as it took, and he meant it, but he was hoping that he’d get some kind of signal as to where this was heading._ _

__The only solace is that Nick seems to be sitting a little closer to the middle of the sofa each week, but even that just makes Louis feel pathetic like some sixth-form student getting excited about the prospect of brushing thighs with his crush. They were married for fuck’s sake. Thigh touching should not be that exciting._ _

__It’s not that he thinks Nick owes him anything, no matter what Nick had said during their argument. If Nick has changed his mind and doesn’t want to try again, then Louis would be fine with just being friends. Or he would at least try to be. But without an indication either way, he’s stuck in this limbo between trying to hold on too tight and trying to let Nick go._ _

__He knows Niall’s sick to the back of his teeth of hearing Louis go on and on about it, but Louis can’t help it. He’s trying really hard to be less self-deprecating —if not for his own sake, then for Niall’s— but he hasn’t gotten the hang of it yet. Instead, he’s left feeling insecure every time he leaves Nick’s house, unsure if it’s the last time he’ll be there. He almost wants to ask Lottie about it, as embarrassing as it is to ask your eighteen-year-old sister for marriage advice. He can’t though without having to start with the fact that he is, in fact, married, so Niall it is._ _

__When Nick gets up halfway through Love Island to go for a wee, Louis lets himself shut his eyes for a few moments. He never realises quite how knackered he is lately throughout the day until he sits down, which means that he keeps finding himself falling asleep in random places in his flat; normal places like the armchair, or weird places like the kitchen floor with a bowl of cereal in his lap._ _

__It’s not that big of a deal, really; or at least, it wouldn’t be, if it weren’t for the bad dreams he’s been having. It’s odd because he didn’t really have that many nightmares right after the attack during the week that he was at home, off of work. Niall thinks that it’s the exhaustion messing with his sleep quality and making him more anxious, just like it had back in the winter when he was hardly pulling two hours a night because he was staying up late on the phone comforting his sisters or brother, but Louis doesn’t really know. He’s stopped trying to figure out how his brain works a long time ago anyways._ _

__He doesn’t know why he thinks it would be different tonight, that he could close his eyes and not fall asleep, but it isn’t._ _

__This time, he doesn’t remember the visuals of the dream. It’s like that sometimes, more of a feeling than a memory. Tonight’s dream is similar to one he’s had before, but his body still reacts the same to the feeling of something encroaching in on him, surrounding him until it feels like there’s almost no air in his lungs. He gasps awake, back ramrod straight and muscles tense._ _

__He’s disoriented for a moment, unable to get a grasp on where he is. He feels something lick his knee and looks down to see a dog. Nick’s, then._ _

__He jumps a little when Nick puts a hand on his arm, causing Nick to pull it back quickly. Louis’s face heats in mortification at being caught out like this, having nightmares still. He chances a look at Nick quickly, who is looking at him wide-eyed, before looking down at Pig instead. She’s nudging his knee with her head like she could sense his distress and he reaches down to pet her._ _

__“You all right?” Nick asks._ _

__“Yeah,” Louis says woodenly. “Of course.”_ _

__“Are you sure? I was going to wake you because you were breathing pretty heavily, but you woke up before I could,” Nick says._ _

__Louis caves at the worry in Nick’s face. “It was just a dream. Startled me is all.”_ _

__Nick hesitates for a moment, then asks, “Was it about that night?”_ _

__Louis thinks about denying it, but he’s trying to be honest. It’s better for Nick to know exactly what he has, or doesn’t have, to offer. “Yeah. Been having them lately.”_ _

__“How long?” Nick says, his brow furrowed slightly._ _

__“After I went back to work. Apparently, being tired makes them worse.”_ _

__“Who told you that? Did you call Liam?”_ _

__“No, just. Know from experience, I guess.”_ _

__“You’ve had nightmares before the attack, too?” Nick says, concerned. Louis nods. “What about? If you don’t mind.”_ _

__“The same, kind of. It’s just like I can’t breathe and then I wake up. Except this time, it’s like someone’s watching me.” Louis looks down. He knows he’s not supposed to be embarrassed about them, but the nightmares make him feel like a helpless kid and he doesn't like it._ _

__He’s been hoping that they’ll just go away, but he’s not sure they will._ _

__“I’ve had them, too,” Nick says quietly, causing Louis’s head to jerk up as he looks at Nick. Nick’s frowning, picking at his nails. “Not like yours, of course. It’s not like I’m the one who went through something traumatic.”_ _

__“What are they about then?” Louis says._ _

__“It’s just the same thing over and over. I pick up the phone and they tell me that you’ve been hurt but they won’t tell me anything else. I just sit in a cab the whole time, going through all the worst-case scenarios and then it ends when we pull up to the hospital.” Nick’s voice quivers a little and Louis wonders how much of that is just a dream and how much of it is a memory. He winces as he pulls at a hangnail, saying, “I never get to see you or find out if you’re okay.”_ _

__Louis blinks quickly a few times, trying to quell the wetness in his eyes. He hadn’t really thought much about what it must have been like for Nick. “I’m so sorry, Nick. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you to go through that.”_ _

__Nick’s shaking his head, looking up at Louis, his eyes a little red. “Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault.”_ _

__“I could have taken you off my emergency list. Could have not popped back into your life without giving you a choice.”_ _

__“What, and had no one until Niall got back? Don’t be daft.”_ _

__Louis shrugs defensively, even though he knows it would have been awful to have woken up alone in the hospital. “I would have been fine.”_ _

__“Louis, you don’t have to do things on your own all the time,” Nick sighs. “You know, most people ask for help. You should try it sometime.”_ _

__Louis bristles a little at that. “I don’t need help.”_ _

“It’s not about what you _need_. Sure, you can get by without help, but that’s a pretty bloody miserable way to go about it, innit?” Nick says. 

__Louis knows that all too well, he thinks._ _

__“It’s just… hard.”_ _

__“Of course it is,” Nick says. “But, like, we all need help sometimes, right? Might as well admit it.”_ _

__“What, did you swallow a self-help book?” Louis says, wincing internally when his voice comes out a bit spiky._ _

__“No.” Nick flushes. “My friend Collette just left one lying around last week and I might have had a little peek at it.”_ _

__“Either that or Harry Styles is rubbing off on you,” Louis says, trying for a joke._ _

__“Harold is an odd one,” Nick says, thankfully going along with the change of subject. “How is that going, by the way? The writing thing? I always try to imagine what he’s like in the studio, but he’s a tough one to pin down, even in the imagination.”_ _

__That’s one way of describing him. “He’s really bloody weird,” Louis says, before adding quickly, “I mean, no offence—”_ _

__“None taken,” Nick chuckles._ _

__“But today, he said he wanted to make like an ode to wanking and he keeps wanting us to come up with ways to make it subtle, but it’s just not.” Louis will never get those two hours of his life back._ _

__“Nothing about Harry’s dick is ever subtle.”_ _

__Louis laughs, covering his mouth when he accidentally snorts. “Would you know a lot about that, mate?” he asks. He would be jealous, but honestly, the thought of Nick and Harry and their gangly limbs trying to make anything work is too funny._ _

__“Nope, not my type,” Nick says, his cheeks going a bit pink._ _

___Since when is rich, handsome, and probably hung not somebody’s type?_ _ _

__“I don’t know, he’s got nice long legs, curly hair, greenish eyes... it’s a pretty good combination,” Louis says, a flush overtaking his own face. He knows his type._ _

__“Ah, but the jokes are unbearable,” Nick says._ _

__Louis rolls his eyes. “If I never have to hear another knock-knock joke, it’ll be too soon.”_ _

__“You best get used to them. We’ve been friends for years now and he still hasn’t run out.”_ _

__Louis groans. “Great.”_ _

__“It’s good, though?” Nick asks. “He’s not being awkward?”_ _

__“No,” Louis says, even though it’s not entirely true. It is a bit awkward hearing Harry go on about how he thinks that Louis and Nick could be good together or the different ways their relationship would play out if this were a rom-com— but it’s also nice._ _

__“Good.”_ _

__“Yeah, good.”_ _

They let the conversation lull, both turning their attention back to the tv. They watch for a few more minutes before Louis’s phone buzzes with a text from Niall. Before he reads the text, which ends up being a stupid meme, he sees the time. _Fuck, it's late_. 

__He texts Niall back before putting his phone in his pocket and grabbing his jacket from where it was laying on the floor._ _

__“Are you going?” Nick says, his brow creased._ _

__“Yeah, it’s almost 10:30.”_ _

__“Oh,” Nick looks surprised. “I hadn’t noticed.”_ _

__They both stand up, making their way back to the entryway. This is something else that has become a thing— Nick walking Louis to his front door. It never fails to make Louis feel jittery, like an awkward teenager waiting for a first kiss. Nick never kisses him of course. Rather they usually just end up standing there for a few seconds in silence before one of them pulls the door open and then Louis leaves._ _

__Tonight, Louis loses the game of chicken, reaches out to grab the handle first. He opens the door, but as he’s about to leave he hears a “Wait.”_ _

__He turns back to Nick, nerves re-energised. “Yes?”_ _

__Nick looks down at his feet, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “I was… I was thinking. And I thought that maybe, you’d— Maybe we could do something different next week? And not just watch telly. If you want.”_ _

__Louis’s minds flip through possible scenarios of what they could do instead of watching the telly, some scenarios more flustering than others. “What did you have in mind?”_ _

__Nick looks a little dumbfounded. “I… don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead, I guess.”_ _

__“Oh,” Louis says._ _

__“But, I could text you? Once I come up with something,” Nick says._ _

Yeah, sure.” Louis wonders when this is going to stop feeling like he’s making date plans with Nick for the first time. Although, _is this supposed to be a date? Or is Nick just bored with watching telly? Should I ask?_

__He doesn’t ask._ _

__“Okay, cool. I’ll text you, then,” Nick says._ _

__Louis nods a few too many times. “Sounds good. I’ll just go, then, and I’ll… wait for your text.”_ _

__They say goodbye awkwardly, then Louis is on his way to the tube, texting Niall on the way._ _

___SOS. Might have date. Be ready to debrief and analyse._ _ _

__* * *__

> __Their break-up had been easy from a logistical standpoint._ _
> 
> __They had already decided not to renew their lease that was ending, since Nick was in London, and they didn’t have any joint accounts to speak of. The hardest part would have been dealing with the marriage itself, but they just… didn’t. Louis never answered his phone and Nick never sent any divorce papers. Eventually, Nick stopped calling and Louis stopped waiting._ _
> 
> __It was everything else that was hard, the first two months an endless expanse of grey stretching out before Louis, the emptiness threatening to consume him. He missed Nick terribly, all alone in his new flat. Still, he couldn’t exactly bring himself to regret what he had done, his only solace having been the firm belief that he had done the right thing. If not for himself, then for Nick._ _
> 
> __It was his mum who encouraged him to start writing again, when he was home for Christmas that year. It was a particularly dreadful Christmas, spent choking on the painful irony that he was supposed to be announcing his marriage instead of nursing a heartbreak. He avoided talking about it at all costs, which was not a particularly easy feat—his family may not have met Nick very many times in person, but they were terribly fond of him._ _
> 
> __His mum had cornered him the night before he left, brandishing a small, wrapped rectangle. It was a leather-bound journal, brown and soft with a buckle-snap to keep it shut._ _
> 
> __“I know you don’t want to talk about this with us, darling,” she said, “but I thought maybe you could write about it.”_ _
> 
> __“I can’t—” Louis cut himself off, not trusting his voice not to waver._ _
> 
> __“You don’t have to.” His mum brushed a hand over his hair. “I just want you to have the option. It’s not good to keep everything locked up.” She pulled him into a hug, letting him hide his tears in her shoulder. “Plus, you used to love writing. I don’t know why you ever stopped.”_ _
> 
> __“It’s been so long since I wrote anything,” he said quietly. “I don’t even know if I could anymore. I don’t think it’d be any good.”_ _
> 
> __“It doesn’t have to be anything other than honest, sweetheart,” she replied, rubbing his back. “It’s just for you.”_ _
> 
> __The music came to him slowly, a short melody here and a fragmented lyric here, but it did come. He wrote it down, trying not to care if the words didn’t flow right. It was a brief reprieve from trying to push everything down all the time, and his sadness was safe like that, laid out on paper before being tucked away again._ _
> 
> __He still felt lost, but writing made everything a little clearer, even if only for a moment._ _
> 
> __* * *_ _
> 
> __He moved to London that summer, after months of his mum’s not-so-subtle brand of encouragement. She was persistent but she was also right—he had always wanted to end up there and without Nick, there was nothing left for him in Liverpool. He hated his job and all of his friends were gone once Zayn fucked off to Paris for a fashion internship. The city had become nowt but a reminder of everything he had lost._ _
> 
> __So he packed up his bags and found a little bedsit and a bar that was hiring, careful not to end up to close to Primrose Hill—not that he could afford it anyways. He figured he'd apply to the bar while he figured out what he wanted to do —not hopeful about his prospects at any publishing houses since he had applied to so many before and couldn’t even get a fucking interview— and he's worked there ever since._ _
> 
> __He hadn't really considered doing anything with his songs until he met Niall, another one of the barkeeps, who loved to talk music during their breaks. When Louis mentioned off the cuff that he was writing some songs of his own, Niall insisted on introducing him to his friend Bressie, who owned a recording studio. Louis was convinced that it was nothing serious at first, but eventually they convinced him to record and send out some actual, real demos._ _
> 
> __Louis honestly didn’t think anything would come of it, was still just crossing his fingers that he would get to stay in London; that even if he wasn’t meant to have Nick, maybe he could still have that._ _

__  
__

* * *  


__The following Monday, Louis is back in the studio with Harry and Mitch, struggling with the bridge for a song that doesn’t feel quite right yet. Despite the distracting sound of Harry giggling as he tries to poke and prod at a stoic Mitch, Louis’s focus is honed in, which is probably why he jumps so hard when his phone rings._ _

__“Sorry, sorry,” he says quickly. Even if Harry is lax, it’s still unprofessional to have his ringer on. He scrambles to get the phone out of his pocket, hitting a button to silence it before looking at who’s calling. When he sees the name at the top of the screen, he nearly drops it._ _

__“Do you mind if I take this?” he asks, professionalism out the window._ _

__“Yeah, no trouble,” Harry waves him off, not even looking away from trying to steal Mitch’s pen._ _

__Louis leaves the room quickly, answering the call as soon as the door shuts. “Hello?”_ _

__“Hiya,” Nick says._ _

__“Hey. Why are you ringing?” Louis asks, mentally face-palming at his borderline accusatory tone._ _

__There’s a pause before Nick says, “Should I not have?”_ _

__“No, no. It’s fine. You just. You said you were going to text. So.” Louis had been waiting impatiently for Nick's text all weekend. He had even begun to think that maybe he wasn't going to text at all, that he had changed his mind. For some reason, Louis hadn't prepared himself for the possibility that Nick might call him._ _

__He wishes he had, though. Maybe then this conversation would be going a little more smoothly._ _

__“Oh. Well, I figured if we were going to be making plans it would be easier over the phone. Are you busy? I could call back later. Or text,” Nick says, sounding a little like he’s regretting calling in the first place. Shit._ _

__“No, you’re right. The phone is easier,” he says, even though he would quite prefer texting at the moment, to give him some time to think about what he wants to say instead of sounding like an idiot. “Sorry, you just caught me off guard. I’m at the studio, though, but I have a few minutes.”_ _

__He probably should get back to writing, but he has a sneaking feeling that Harry won’t mind his absence once he figures out who’s on the phone._ _

__“Are you sure? You can go if you need to,” Nick says._ _

__“No, it’s all right,” Louis insists._ _

__“If you say so,” Nick says. Louis hears him swallow before he continues. “So, anyways, I know we talked about doing something other than watching the telly some time.”_ _

__“Yes,” Louis says after Nick pauses for a bit too long, nerves fluttering in his stomach._ _

__“Right. So, I was thinking we could go to dinner, if you’d like,” Nick says._ _

__Louis feels his nerves multiply. “Like out to dinner? At a restaurant?” he asks dumbly._ _

__“I mean, yeah. That’s typically what going out to dinner involves.” Nick sounds confused._ _

__“Oh.”_ _

__When Louis and Niall had talked about what Nick’s intentions were last week, they had come to the conclusion that whether or not Nick was trying to ask Louis on a date depended on what Nick suggested they do instead of watching telly. This… this is firmly in date territory._ _

__“We don’t have to,” Nick starts rambling while Louis’s silence drags on. “We could do something else. Or we could just watch telly like normal. We don’t have to change it up. It’s fine.”_ _

__Louis wills himself to get his shit together. “No, dinner sounds good.”_ _

__“Really, if you don’t want to, it’s fine.”_ _

__“Dinner sounds lovely, Nick, really,” Louis says._ _

__“Okay,” Nick says, still sounding a bit unsure of himself. “I could text you the address of the place I was thinking of. It’s really good. I mean, unless you have an idea—”_ _

__“No, wherever you want is fine,” Louis says. Although, he hopes it isn’t one of those hipster places with the nasty green juice._ _

__“All right. I’ll, um, text you then, I guess,” Nick says. It’s odd hearing Nick sound this awkward. Louis hopes it’s just because they haven’t talked on the phone in a long time._ _

__They say their goodbyes shortly after that and Louis takes a moment before he goes back into the studio, trying to school his features so he doesn’t give away his nervous excitement._ _

__Harry’s in a chair across the room from Mitch when Louis opens the door; he must have gotten bored with trying to rile Mitch up. Mitch is still in the same spot, bent over his guitar to scribble notes in the notebook on the table in front of him._ _

__“Who was that?” Harry asks, eyes on his phone screen._ _

__Louis tries to seem nonchalant. “Just Nick.”_ _

__Harry looks up that. “Grimmy?”_ _

__“Yeah,” Louis says, internally rolling his eyes. Everyone else may be intent on calling him that, but Louis knew him as Nick first._ _

__A grin splits Harry’s lips. “Did he finally have the bollocks to ask you on a date, then?”_ _

__“He told you?” Louis doesn’t miss the confirmation that this is, in fact, a date._ _

__“Well, yeah,” Harry says. “That is why he called right?”_ _

__“He asked me to dinner. I mean, he didn’t say it was a date…” Louis says, flushing a bit at how he’s obviously fishing for reassurance._ _

__“I told him to say it was a date, but he never listens.” Harry rolls his eyes._ _

__Louis tries to hide his grin at that, knowing how stubborn Nick can be. “Classic Nicholas.”_ _

__“Pain in my arse, I’ll tell you,” Harry says, the fond smile on his face contradicting his words, before turning back to his phone._ _

__They get back to work after that, with Harry humming out loud occasionally, Mitch mirroring the notes on his guitar. Louis doesn’t end up figuring out the part of the bridge that’s been bugging him, but he still leaves the studio feeling lighter than usual._ _

__* * *_ _

__Louis pushes his pasta around his plate, stomach heavy with nerves. Nick’s been talking for a good three minutes straight, but Louis is having trouble focusing on what he’s saying. Instead, he finds himself looking towards the windows, expecting to see a bright flash from a camera any minute. He wishes Nick would have picked a less popular restaurant, rather than one he’s been known to frequent with Harry on occasion._ _

__Objectively, he can see why Nick would pick this place. The food looks great; it probably tastes good, too, but Louis wouldn’t really know. He hasn’t really been able to stomach it._ _

__It’s dumb, he knows, being this nervous. He wasn’t even that nervous when he was leaving his flat earlier, besides the normal pre-date butterflies. He was excited to see Nick. When he had gotten to the restaurant, though, he was hit with the realisation that this wasn’t just a date. This was being in public with Nick. Nick, who is famous and gets papped on nights out and has a very real marriage certification with his and Louis’s names on it._ _

__Louis doesn’t know how easy it would be for the tabloids to find the certificate, but he imagines they could if they wanted to, and fuck, he hasn’t even told Lottie yet._ _

__When Nick arrived, Louis hadn’t known what to do—wasn’t sure if he should hug Nick or shake his hand or something, torn between seeking out Nick’s comfort and trying to make this look platonic to the outside world. He felt paralysed by the anxiety of it and ending up doing nothing, sitting awkwardly as Nick stood waiting for Louis to greet him in some way before eventually sitting down, too._ _

__He knows he’s been too quiet, almost cold even, which only makes his anxiety grow. He doesn’t know how to do this, though—how to act around Nick when other people can see it. His head feels so jumbled with thoughts of what he should or shouldn’t do that it’s hard to push through it._ _

Their waiter comes to their table and picks up Nick’s empty plate. _Fuck, when did he finish?_ Louis looks down at his own plate, face flushing when he realises that it’s basically still full. 

__“Are you done, sir?”_ _

__Louis gives a jerky nod. “Um, yes.”_ _

__“Louis, you didn’t eat hardly anything,” Nick interjects._ _

__“It’s fine. I’m good,” Louis says, moving back so the waiter can clear his space._ _

__Nick waits quietly until the waiter leaves, just looking at Louis. Louis squirms a bit, pulling at the sleeve of his button-up._ _

__When the silence is bordering on suffocating, Louis speaks up, “I can, uh, pay for my plate. Since I didn’t eat it.”_ _

__Nick sighs. “I think this might have been a mistake.”_ _

__Louis feels his stomach clench, looking up in surprise. “What? I’m sorry I didn’t eat it—”_ _

__“It’s not that,” Nick says. “You just haven’t exactly been… engaged.”_ _

__Louis glances around at that, a Freudian response to the mention of anything having to do with marriage._ _

__“See?” Nick says, gesturing with his hand. “Like that. You’ve been distracted all night. I’m sorry if I, like, pressured you into this but you could have said no if you didn’t want to come.” Nick sighs, looking dejected. “Maybe this just doesn’t work anymore?”_ _

__“Nick, I—” Louis fish-mouths, trying to find the right words. “I did want to come. Of course, I did.”_ _

__“Then what’s the matter?” Nick says, brow furrowed._ _

__Louis looks at the window again. “Aren’t you worried?”_ _

__“Worried about what?”_ _

__“What if they see us and they put two and two together?” Louis asks, looking back at Nick._ _

__“Who? Paps? I know you think I’m a proper celebrity, but I can assure you, I’m not,” Nick says, chuckling humourlessly. “They don’t follow me around or anything.”_ _

__“But what about after the hospital?” That story had come out pretty quickly._ _

__“They only followed me then because I didn’t show up to work. I guess they figured there must have been some gossip-worthy reason that I didn’t go,” Nick says. “But other than that, if I’m not at an event or with Harry, they pretty much leave me alone.”_ _

__“Oh,” Louis says. He had just assumed that they were around all the time. “I didn’t know.”_ _

__“You could have said something, you know.” Nick tilts his head to the side. “Is that what’s got you distracted all night? That someone might see us?”_ _

__“No,” Louis says quickly. Nick stares at him. “Okay, yes.”_ _

__“Why does that matter? Who cares if they catch us? I’m not going to hide this time. We both know how that worked out the first time,” Nick says and Louis can feel his frustration mounting._ _

__Louis picks at his cuticle. “I just… I don’t want to fuck anything up for you. Especially, if this doesn’t work out.”_ _

__Nick sits back, squeezing the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. “You’ve got to let go of this, Lou. I don’t need you to make decisions for me. I wouldn’t have invited you out if I was worried about what this would look like. Frankly, the people who matter already know about our history, right? So, everyone else can go fuck themselves.”_ _

__Louis hesitates, before admitting quietly, “I haven’t told Lottie yet.”_ _

__Nick tilts his head back, blowing out a breath, before shaking his head. “God, you act like you want this and then you do shit that has me questioning it all over again. I don’t even—”_ _

__“The check, sirs,” the waiter interrupts, making Louis jump slightly. He hadn’t heard him coming._ _

__“Thank you,” Nick says, sitting up straight and avoiding Louis’s gaze._ _

__“I can—”_ _

__“No, it’s fine. I invited you,” Nick says brusquely. Louis watches as he gets out his wallet and lays down a few notes, unsure of what he should say next._ _

__Nick starts to put on his jacket and Louis can feel his own hands start to shake, lungs constricting. This is not how he wanted this to end. Nick pushes back his chair and Louis hears himself wheeze out, “Nick.”_ _

__Nick looks up, probably taking in the obvious panic in Louis’s features because he quickly says, “I’m not—I just think we should have this conversation somewhere else.” He looks pointedly at the next table over, where an older woman was obviously just eavesdropping. Oh._ _

__Louis gets up, grabbing his jacket and following Nick out of the restaurant. They walk silently for two blocks, Louis trying to come up with something to say, before Nick turns abruptly to enter a small coffee shop. There’s hardly anyone inside, just the workers, but it’s still not entirely private._ _

__As Nick leads them to a booth, Louis can’t help but ask, “Here?”_ _

__“Why not?”_ _

__“I thought we were trying to get away from people who could hear,” Louis says._ _

__“No, we were trying to get away from that woman who was especially nosy. But we’re fine here, okay? This is right around the corner from the Beeb, so I know these people,” Nick says. “Honestly, I don’t really care who hears us, but I know it makes you uncomfortable, so.”_ _

__As they settle into the booth, Louis feels both a wave of gratitude towards Nick and a flare of embarrassment that he’s being difficult. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make us leave.”_ _

__“It’s fine. I probably shouldn’t go gabbing out my personal life in fancy restaurants anyways. I do enough of that on the radio,” Nick says, rolling his eyes at himself. His face grows more serious. “But, I need you to know that if we do this,” he motions between them, “I can’t hide it again. I refuse to live my life in fear of what the tabloids or fucking Twitter might say about me. They ruin things if you let them and I won’t let them do that.”_ _

__For all that Louis claims to be honest and truthful in his writing, he’s never quite laid himself bare like that, for the world to see. He doesn’t know if he can do that, when it was hard to give even part of himself over through his lyrics. “Aren’t you ever afraid?”_ _

__Nick’s face softens, “Sometimes. It’s not the easiest thing. But it doesn’t mean I have to, like, tell everyone everything. I just… live my life and share what I want to share, and I try not to think about the rest.”_ _

__Louis looks down at his hands where they rest on the table and thinks that over. It doesn’t sound so scary when it’s put like that, he supposes._ _

__Nick reaches out and places one of his hands on top of both of Louis’s, making him look up. “Louis, I don’t need you to suddenly be okay with all this. I know it takes time. But, I do need you to tell some people, the important ones, eventually. Not now, exactly, but soon. I mean, if you do want to try this again.”_ _

__“I know,” Louis says, eyes pricking a bit. “I’m sorry I haven’t told Lottie yet. I just don’t know how.”_ _

__“You don’t have to do it alone. I can help you,” Nick says, squeezing Louis’s hands._ _

__Louis blinks away some of the moisture in his eyes. He’s not going to cry here. “Aren’t you afraid it isn’t going to work out? And then all this will be for nothing.”_ _

__Nick rubs his thumb along Louis’s knuckles absent-mindedly before he speaks. “I was scared at first, I think. I mean, you broke my heart and I didn’t even know why. I didn’t know how to stop it from happening again. How to make you not stop loving me again.” Nick pauses when his voice gets a little thick and Louis swears he can feel his heart fracture. “I don’t know how exactly how to… trust you again. But I keep thinking there must be a reason you came back into my life again. At first, I thought it was because we needed closure, but that’s not what I want anymore. You really hurt me when you broke up with me, but the thought of being without you forever hurts so much worse.”_ _

__Louis flips one of his hands over so he can squeeze Nick’s, trying to convey how sorry he is for hurting Nick through the gesture._ _

“Nick, I can’t promise you that I’m not going to get scared again. I’m already scared. But,” Louis pauses to take a deep breath. _Be honest_. “But, I love you. I still love you and I tried to so hard to make myself stop, but I never could.” 

__Nick’s eyes widen at Louis’s admission, “Never?”_ _

__“No,” Louis says. It’s the truth, even though it makes Louis stomach quiver when he says it._ _

__Nick stares at Louis intently, before saying, “You can be scared, Lou, but you have to talk to me about it. You can’t just do that again. You can’t just make whatever decisions you want and then cut me out of your life. It’s not fair.”_ _

__“I know,” Louis looks down, eyes filling to the brim with shame. He doesn’t miss that Nick didn’t say I love you back. “I’m so sorry. I hurt you and I’m so sorry.”_ _

__Nick reaches out to put his other hand on Louis’s wrist. “Look at me,” he says. Louis lifts his head reluctantly. Nick’s eyes are soft. “Hey, it’s all right, okay? There’s no need to cry. We’re going to try to move past this, right? We’re both going to have to let go of that hurt.”_ _

__“Do you think we can?” Louis says._ _

“I don’t know,” Nick says, and Louis deflates slightly, tears threatening to fall. It’s not the answer Louis wanted, but it’s an honest one. Nick continues, “But when I got that phone call...god, I didn’t even know if you were going to be okay. And even if you were, I didn’t know if you’d want to see me. If maybe I was still in your phone on accident. Then, when you _were_ okay and you agreed to stay with me, I knew I had to try to figure out what happened. Why you didn’t want to come to London anymore. Why I wasn’t enough for you.” 

__“That’s not—”_ _

__“I know. I know that now. But when I first got that phone call, before I even called a cab, all I could think about was how much I still loved you, even after everything,” Nick says and Louis’s heart slams against his ribcage, his eyes watering. “Right then, it didn’t matter what you did in the past or if you even cared about me at all anymore, because I knew that I loved you and you needed me. And that… that was the most important thing. That was worth more than all the hurt or the anger that I was holding on to.”_ _

Louis feels the dam burst then, and pulls both of his hands back to cover his face. He knows the barista can probably tell that he’s crying but he can’t find it in himself to care. _Nick loves him_. Fuck. He’s wanted to hear Nick say that so badly, even though he can’t help the tiny part of him that still says he doesn’t deserve it. 

__He hears Nick get out of his side of the booth, but doesn’t pull his face out of his hands until he feels Nick settle next to him, his arms wrapping Louis up in a tight embrace. He tucks his face into Nick’s neck, winding his arms around his torso. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and he’s not just talking about what happened tonight or about the fact that Nick had to receive that phone call from the hospital._ _

__“It’s okay,” Nick says, his lips brushing against Louis’s hair, and somehow Louis knows that he understands. An apology isn’t enough for all of the hurt Louis has caused, but it’s all he’s got. “Shh, darling. It’s all right.”_ _

__They sit there until Louis’s tears stop, a mark on Nick’s jumper from where Louis had tucked his face. “Sorry,” he says when he pulls back, grimacing at the stain. The jumper probably costs more than Louis makes in a week._ _

__Nick looks down at the stain and then shrugs. “It’s okay. It’ll wash out.”_ _

__Louis reaches to grab a napkin from the holder on the table to wipe his face down, glancing at the barista who’s playing on her phone. “We never did buy anything,” he says, feeling awkward in the aftermath of his crying jag._ _

__“It’s okay, I’ll buy something extra tomorrow,” Nick says, before glancing at his watch. “I know dinner was kind of shit, but if you want, we could still make it back to mine before Love Island starts. Or I could take you home, if you wanted.”_ _

__A laugh bubbles out of Louis’s mouth, a bit phlegmy. “You want me to come over after I just cried all over you?”_ _

__“Yeah,” Nick says, his eyes gentle. “I love you, don’t I? No matter what.”_ _

__Louis ducks his head, a warm feeling in his belly. “Might could, then.”_ _

__Nick face breaks into a grin. “Grand. Let’s be going, then. Don’t want to miss a second of it.”_ _

__Louis goes to the bathroom to wash off his face before they leave; even if he’s not supposed to be caring so much about the paps anymore, he still doesn’t want to look like shit. After that, they head back to Nick’s and Louis doesn’t even try to stifle the bright, burning hope that burrows beneath his ribcage._ _

__* * *_ _

__On the way back to Nick’s, Louis mulls over the past few hours. He doesn't know what he expected to happen, but he knows that he definitely didn't expect to be exchanging declarations of love. He's still fairly shocked that he had the balls to say it, if he's being honest._ _

It had felt good to say it, though, this weighty secret finally lifted off his shoulders. For so long, it had been a source of shame, like, _why the fuck can't you just let him go_ now, it says _hold on to him as long as you can_. 

__Louis knows that he's not going to get a second chance this time. This is it. If he fucks up again, he's going to lose Nick for good. He knows he has to show Nick that he's going to be better this time._ _

__So when they get to Nick’s and settle on the sofa, Louis stops him from reaching for the remote._ _

__“Nick, wait.”_ _

__Nick looks at him with eyebrows raised, hand half-outstretched towards the coffee table. When he looks down at where Louis is fidgeting with his phone, he sits back, seeming to sense that Louis has something on his mind._ _

__“All right?”_ _

__“Yeah,” Louis says, flipping his phone back and forth in his hands. “Just—do you mind if we don't turn on the telly just yet?”_ _

__Nick’s brow furrows. “Is something up?”_ _

Louis looks down at his phone, trying to steel his nerves. _You have to do it sometime. Might as well be now_. He takes a deep breath before making eye contact with Nick, who still looks concerned. “I think…” he pauses, taking another breath. “I think I'd like to call Lottie now. If you're still up for it.” 

__Nick's eyes widen before a small, but present, grin appears on his face. “Yeah?”_ _

__Louis swallows. “Yeah.”_ _

__Nick's smile dims slowly as Louis continues his fidgeting. “Are you sure you're ready? It doesn't have to be now.”_ _

__Louis feels his nerves somewhat settle at Nick’s comforting tone, the way he's always so considerate of what Louis needs, whether Louis deserves it or not. He knows he needs to do something for Nick in return._ _

__Making sure his voice conveys conviction, he says, “I'm ready.”_ _

__“Okay.” Nick's eyes are warm. “Whenever you're ready. I'm here.”_ _

__Louis takes a few breaths, trying to smooth out the remaining edge of nerves, before he brings up Lottie's contact on his phone and presses call._ _

__“Lou?” she answers. “It's about time you called me, you arsehole. I was about to come down to London if you kept dodging me.”_ _

__Sometimes, she reminds him so much of their mum that he gets a little breathless. He heard almost the exact thing from his mum when he stopped answering her calls in the weeks after the breakup._ _

__“Sorry, Lots,” he says. “I've been really busy lately.”_ _

__“Too busy for your dear sister?” she asks, voice saccharine. Laughing, she continues before Louis can apologise again. “Don't worry about it, I'm just messing with you. Just don't do it again, ‘kay?”_ _

__“I won't.”_ _

__“Good. Now, what's kept you so busy?”_ _

__Louis looks up to see that Nick's still looking at him. He reaches his hand out to grab Nick's, needing the comfort. “That's what I'm calling about actually.”_ _

__Nick smiles at him encouragingly, seeming to recognise that Louis’s about to say it, even though he's only getting one side of the conversation._ _

__“Oh, yeah? What's up?”_ _

__“Well, um,” he pauses and Nick squeezes his hand. “Remember a few weeks ago, when you called and I said I was staying with Nick?”_ _

__“After the hospital?” Lottie asks, her tone serious now._ _

__“Yeah,” Louis says. “Well, we’ve been hanging out since then.”_ _

__“So you've been shagging,” Lottie interrupts, sounding nonchalant about it._ _

__“Lottie!” Louis says, scandalised. It's his little sister for god’s sake. “No, we haven't been shagging.”_ _

__He hears a choked noise from Nick and Louis's face flames when he remembers that Nick’s sitting right there, face equally flushed._ _

__“Wait, so are you dating him or no?” Lottie asks._ _

__“I don't know,” Louis says hesitantly. “I think so. We, uh, went on a date tonight.”_ _

__Nick's lips curve up at that, his eyes soft._ _

__“Well, you know we all loved Nick,” Lottie says, but there's a certain warmth missing. She adds quietly, “Mum, too.”_ _

__“I know,” Louis says, because he does know that. They all tried to hide their disappointment when Louis came home for Christmas without Nick, but he could tell._ _

__“Just—” Lottie pauses before she goes on. “Do you think it’s a good idea, though?”_ _

__“What do you mean?” Louis replies, not even trying to hide the way his brow furrows from Nick._ _

__“You were just so sad last time and I don't want to see you get hurt again, you know? Like we've already had a shit year and I don't want it to be worse for you if this doesn't work out.”_ _

__He knows it'll be much worse than last time if they don't work out this time around. He could let that fear swallow him whole if he wanted to. But then he looks into Nick’s eyes and sees warmth and concern, and it's not something he can just walk away from again._ _

__Still holding Nick’s gaze, he says, “This is my second chance, Lots. I can't pass that up.”_ _

__Nick's answering grin takes up half his face._ _

__“Well, I just want you to be happy, Lou. You know that.”_ _

__“Yeah, I know.” Louis is tempted to leave it there, but he knows he has to push through. He focuses on Nick’s grip, looking down at their hands. “There's something else, too.”_ _

__“Oh?” Lottie sounds cautious. “What is it?”_ _

__“Before Nick moved to London and we broke up,” Nick squeezes his hand, “Nick and I… we got married.”_ _

__There’s only silence from the other end for a few agonisingly slow moments._ _

__“You're having me on,” Lottie accuses. “Mum would have told me.”_ _

__“She didn't know.”_ _

__“That doesn't make any sense. You told her everything,” Louis rushes out. “For fuck’s sake, you told her the first time you and Nick shagged.”_ _

__The tips of Louis's ears burn at that. He hopes Nick didn't hear._ _

__“I swear she didn't know.”_ _

__“When did this supposedly happen?” she asks, still stunned. Louis wishes she was here so he could see her face. “And why wouldn't you say anything?”_ _

__“A month before Nick moved. I was going to tell you all eventually but I was afraid Mum would get mad.”_ _

__Lottie huffs out a laugh. “Mad that she didn't get invited to your wedding? I should fucking think she'd be mad.”_ _

__“It wasn't a wedding, really.” Louis’s shoulders fold in and Nick grips his hand harder. “It was just the registry office.”_ _

__“Why—” Lottie says, incredulous, “why the fuck would you do that? Did you not want us there?”_ _

__“No, that's not—of course I would have loved to have you there. But, it was such short notice and it was easier to just do it by ourselves." It's not that they didn't want anyone there—they just got caught up in the whirlwind of it. Or at least that's what they had told themselves at the time. Part of Louis thinks that maybe they were just afraid someone would talk them out of it. "We were going to maybe have an actual wedding later, with all of you there. Nick's family, too."__

_____ _

_____ _

Sure, they hadn’t planned it out exactly, but they had talked about it a time or two. 

__

____

__

__“That's stupid. It's cheating. You can’t just get married and pretend you aren’t because it’s more convenient for you.”_ _

__

____

__

__Louis chuckles without meaning to. “We weren't going to, like, trick people. We were going to tell everyone about the marriage certificate beforehand.”_ _

__

____

__

__“Don't laugh,” Lottie says sternly. “I can't believe you didn't tell Mum about this.”_ _

__

____

__

__Louis sobers at the mention of his mum. “You know how mum was about marrying young.”_ _

__

____

__

__“But you did it anyways.”_ _

__

____

__

Louis doesn't know what to say to that, because it’s true. He did go against his mum’s advice and it ended just like she thought it would. Except, he looks up at Nick and thinks, _maybe it didn't_. Regardless, it doesn’t erase the fact that he went behind his mum’s back. 

__

____

__

__The silence stretches on, both of them seemingly deep in thought, before Lottie breaks it._ _

__

____

__

__“Mum said something to me once, you know, towards the end,” she says, voice pensive. “Told me life is too short to not to follow your heart, damn the consequences.”_ _

__

____

__

__It’s such a mum-cliche, but it’s one of the few things they have left of her. Louis feels his heart clench in his chest, a bright spot of grief that still smarts after all this time. “She told me that, too.”_ _

__

____

__

__“Were you following your heart then? When you married Nick?” she asks._ _

__

____

__

__He squeezes Nick's hand as he remembers that day when they exchanged vows, promising their hearts to each other. He doesn't know about Nick, but he knows he meant it._ _

__

____

__

__“Yeah. I was.”_ _

__

____

__

__Lottie breathes out deeply, mulling something over. “What changed?”_ _

__

____

__

__“I don't know,” Louis says, because the full answer is too complicated. “I guess we just lost it somewhere along the way. It's my fault.”_ _

__

____

__

__Nick opens his mouth as if to protest but Louis stops him. He knows he's the one who fucked up._ _

__

____

__

__“When did you get divorced then?”_ _

__

____

__

__“Um. We didn't,” Louis says, cringing, and it sounds almost like a question._ _

__

____

__

Lottie is bewildered. “I don’t understand. It’s been _years_." 

__

____

__

__“I can’t explain it,” Louis says, because he can’t. He’s not sure why they never signed any papers or made it official. He knows it doesn’t make much sense. “I just...I couldn’t do it.”_ _

__

____

__

__“I’m so confused right now,” Lottie says flatly. “I don’t understand why you would have hidden this from me. I thought we talked about everything.”_ _

__

____

__

__Louis feels his stomach clench. He hates knowing that he’s hurt Lottie. “I’m sorry,” he apologises, even though he knows it’s not enough._ _

__

____

__

__“You don’t—I don’t want you to have to apologise.” She blows out a breath. “I’m just sad that you felt like you couldn’t come to me.”_ _

__

____

__

__He turns away from Nick, not wanting to see his face when he says, “I just didn’t know if it was going to work out. I wanted it to so badly, but I didn’t know. And I didn’t want you, or Mum, to be disappointed about me getting married if I was going to end up fucking it up anyways.”_ _

__

____

__

__Nick makes a soft noise in the back of his throat at that, but Louis doesn’t look up._ _

__

____

__

__“Oh, Lou,” Lottie sighs._ _

__

____

__

__“I didn’t want to keep secrets, I swear. I was going to tell you all at Christmas, really, but that was—it was already over by then,” Louis says, his throat thick. He can feel Nick’s gaze burning into the side of his face._ _

__

____

__

__“Is it different now, then?” Lottie asks. “Because you were so sad that Christmas and I don’t want to see you like that again.”_ _

__

____

__

__“I think so. We’ve, uh, talked about it a lot and I think it’s going to be different this time.” Louis chances a glance at Nick then and Nick nods at him._ _

__

____

__

__“Good. Otherwise, I’ll have to come kick Nick’s arse if he hurts you again,” Lottie says fiercely._ _

__

____

__

A chuckle bursts out of Louis at that, overshadowing that part of himself that says, _it was you that hurt Nick_ —they’re moving past that now, Nick says. “I don’t think that will be necessary.” 

__

____

__

__“Good.”_ _

__

____

__

__Louis smiles into the receiver for a moment, before saying, “Listen, I’ve got to go, okay? But we can talk more tomorrow if you want.”_ _

__

____

__

__“Okay,” Lottie says. “You better answer your damn phone when I call you.”_ _

__

____

__

__“I will,” he promises._ _

__

____

__

__“Good,” she says. “And thanks for telling me, Lou. Finally.”_ _

__

____

__

__“It was about time,” he rolls his eyes at himself, picking at his sleeve._ _

__

____

__

__“You’re damn right,” Lottie affirms._ _

__

____

__

__“I love you, Lots.”_ _

__

____

__

__“And I love you lots.”_ _

__

____

__

__Louis laughs at the familiar joke before saying goodbye. When they hang-up, his shoulders slump, the tension running through his body during the call dissipating all at once._ _

__

____

__

__Nick touches his shoulder gently before coaxing him into a hug. Louis holds on tight._ _

__

____

__

__“I’m proud of you,” Nick says into the juncture where Louis’s neck meets his shoulder, his breath hot against Louis’s skin._ _

__

____

__

__Louis feels better than he thought he would after telling Lottie, but he can’t help the regret that sizzles in the pit of his stomach, knowing that he’s never going to get to tell his mum. For so long, he thought he had to carry this by himself, but every time he tells someone, it’s like a new weight lifted off his shoulders. He wonders if telling his mum would have felt the same way._ _

__

____

__

__He doesn’t want to think about that right now, though, because there’s nothing he can do about it. All that's left is move forward and focus on the things he can do. It’s what his mum always told him to do anyways—to follow his heart and to take chances._ _

__

____

__

__Steeling his nerves, he pulls back from Nick’s embrace, his arms loosening from Nick’s neck and unwinding until they reach their place with Louis’s hands on either side of Nick’s throat. Louis brushes his thumbs against the notches at the corners of Nick’s jawbone and Nick’s mouth parts slightly._ _

__

____

__

__“I love you,” Louis says, a whisper between their mouths._ _

__

____

__

__Nick rests his forehead against Louis’s, closing his eyes. “God, I missed you.”_ _

__

____

__

__Louis’s not sure who moves first, but their noses are sliding together before their lips catch and hold. It’s a tentative press of lips at first, before Nick exhales through his nose, tilting his head for a better angle. They re-learn each other’s mouths, parting to let one another in. Louis presses his thumbs deeper against Nick’s jaw and Nick gasps, his mouth opening wider. They kiss slow and deep, unlike the frantic energy that used to consume their kisses. It’s different now, because they’re different now, but Nick’s taste is familiar even after all this time._ _

__

____

__

__They pull back eventually, their lips separating reluctantly in need of air. Louis takes in Nick’s face, the flush high on his cheekbones and the way he blinks slower than usual. His hands are still on Nick’s neck and he moves one up to rest on Nick’s cheek, feeling the warmth for himself._ _

__

____

__

__“I missed you, too. So much,” Louis says._ _

__

____

__

__Nick reaches up and pulls at the hand on his face, lacing their fingers instead. “I love you. And I mean it, that I’m proud of you.”_ _

__

____

__

__Louis looks down, “I should have told her sooner.”_ _

__

____

__

__Nick nudges Louis’s chin up with his hand, leaning in to peck him softly. “None of that, okay? I know it was hard for you. I’m sorry if I made you feel guilty for not having done it before now.”_ _

__

____

__

__“You didn’t.” Or at least, he didn’t make Louis feel any more guilty than he already did. “I wanted to. I just didn’t know how before.”_ _

__

____

__

__“I just...I don’t want it to be like it was before. Like, you hurting yourself trying to make me happy. That’s not okay. I’m not happy if you’re hurting, okay?”_ _

__

____

__

__Louis privately thinks he would do it all over again if Nick had actually ended up happy, but he doesn’t say that. Instead, he kisses Nick again, revelling in the fact that, against all odds, he gets to do this again. That Nick is somehow happier with him._ _

__

____

__

__Nick pulls back slightly, his breath still spilling over Louis’s lips as he rests his forehead on Louis’s. He sweeps his thumb across Louis’s bottom lip, before pressing it lightly against his chin. “I love you.”_ _

__

____

__

__“I love you, too,” Louis says. “Sap.”_ _

__

____

__

__Nick kisses him again, his thumb squished between their chins. “Mm, Harry’s showed me some of your songs. If anyone’s the sap, it’s you.”_ _

__

____

__

__Louis laughs, his cheeks flushing. Nick’s got no idea how sappy Louis’s songs are going to be now._ _

__

____

__

__He knows they still have a lot to talk about, but it doesn’t feel quite as daunting anymore. Not when he sees the confidence in Nick’s half-lidded eyes, like he knows they’re going to make it somehow. Like all the hurt they went through can build a foundation for something good._ _

__

____

__

__“Will you write our new vows now that you’re a professional?” Nick jokes, moving his hand to cradle Louis’s jaw, looking at him fully._ _

__

____

__

__Louis thinks about getting to make new promises and keep them, and he knows he wants it more than anything._ _

__

____

__

__He shrugs, smiling. “Never written vows.”_ _

__

____

__

__“Write me a song, then,” Nick grins right back._ _

__

____

__

__That, Louis can do._ _

__

____

__

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :)
> 
> You can come say hi [here](https://www.tintedglasses.tumblr.com) and you can reblog the fic post [here](https://tintedglasses.tumblr.com/post/167874243034/some-velvet-morning-years-too-late-by) if you feel inclined to do so! Kudos and comments are also greatly appreciated (but definitely not required!).


End file.
